


Old Butler Road

by Brennah_K



Series: Princes and Dragons [1]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Smallville
Genre: AU-Exodus, Explicit Language, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennah_K/pseuds/Brennah_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: With the help of an old friend, Lex returns from the island to discover that his was not the only life to go awry. Written for the CLFF Prompts: H/C & Tagline- "He's afraid. He's alone. He's three million light years away from home."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Prodigal Son

_Smallville -_

As he drew closer to the gated entry to the Kent's farm, Lex fought to suppress his growing anxiety.

The Kents' property had started a short distance back, and though he was not as familiar with farming as he might have been, Lex knew enough to recognize that their farm had not been tended in some time. Fields they could not afford to leave uncultivated, lay fallow and untilled.

It was not only the Kents' land that showed a disconcerting absence of their customary care. Fence posts along the road had become so overgrown with grass and vines that they bowed. The dirt road, itself, appeared as if it hadn’t seen a car, truck, or tractor in many months, and the possible reasons for that worried Lex terribly.

As his car drew close enough for him to see that the sign with family's name and brand had been taken down from the gate, the churning sensation of worry in his stomach evolved into an ulcerous burning of something like fear.

Before the doomed honeymoon, Lex had made arrangements to forestall any bank actions against the Kents until after harvest: to ensure that his father would not be able to engage the Kents in his perpetual games while he was away - including a secured deposit to indemnify the bank against any losses they might incur from forestalling foreclosure. Even his father's presumptuous proclamation of his death should not have affected that.

Coming to a stop at the gate that he could never remember seeing closed, Lex stared at the padlock dangling from a chain, which had been wrapped around the bars so many times before it was locked that it seemed somehow like an obscene insult.

ブレンキン

"Thanks, Daddy," Chloe Sullivan said, waving her father off as she closed the gate behind her, "Lex will bring me home."

Coming out of his contemplative daze, Lex wondered how long he might have stared at the locked gate before her small hand landed on his shoulder and broke his reverie. He truly couldn't say, but it must have been for several minutes at least because he hadn't even noticed the Sullivans' arrival.

"Young Lady," her father chastised, "you're assuming quite a lot aren't you? You didn't even ask whether he could, much less whether he minded. Mr. Luthor is an incredibly bus-"

"No... No, Mr. Sullivan, your daughter's right, both about my schedule and my mood, I have the time." Lex interrupted, knowing that Chloe had undoubtedly sought him out for the very same reason he had just contemplated calling her. They both had questions and answers to give.

"Thank you, Lex," Mr. Sullivan answered, giving his daughter a look that almost seemed like a warning before he nodded to Lex and pulled away.

"I tried to tell him that you'd want to hear it from me, but as much as he loves me, he still thinks of me as a nerdy kid on a school newspaper, who couldn't possibly have anything in common with a billionaire businessman." Chloe explained as she pulled slightly on his elbow gesturing back toward his car, before she walked over to the passenger side and climbed in. He studied her expression for several seconds, glancing back toward the distant glimpse of uneven yellow and grey of the Kent’s home. A sinking feeling somewhere very near the pit of his stomach was beginning to accompany the worried voice in the back of his mind.

Lex would have preferred to hear whatever news she was about to impart from Clark himself, but an ever increasing voice in the back of his thoughts had been whispering, since early that morning, that Clark would have been at the manor the second that he'd heard Lex was back- if he had been able to.

It was the only reason that he had delayed leaving the manor so long: his certainty that Clark would be there shortly with one of his unabashed, long armed hugs that no one else seemed to be able to give without seeming uncomfortable.

"Where are they, Chloe? What happened?"

The characteristically blunt young blonde, uncharacteristically, paused for several seconds, uncertain how to begin.

"Chloe, no games, just tell me."

"I'll ... I'll take you to them, and tell you what I can. We'll need to head back toward town though, Old Butler Road."

Lex forced himself to keep his eyes forward, stilling the sudden shake in his hand as he reached for the key, and managed a curt nod.

Despite its name, Old Butler Road was a wide modern four lane avenue that was kept well-maintained by the county, even though there were only two destinations on Old Butler Road: the Smallville Medical Center and Ceder Hill Cemetery.

A refrain of 'let it be the hospital' began to replay over and over in his thoughts.

ブレンキン

“Tell me!" He ordered gruffly.

Gripping the door frame, Chloe paled and nodded jerkily, but didn't seem ready to speak until he lightened his foot on the pedal – dropping his speed by 30 or 40 mph. He didn't really check to see which.

He almost resented the snail's pace her clear anxiety was constraining him to, but the farm clearly hadn't been worked in months. Chloe hadn't seemed unusually driven to get him to the hospital, so whatever had happened- the situation was, if not stable, at least, static.

"You remember, just before the wedding, how stressed Clark seemed?"

Lex nodded vaguely, trying to remember how his friend had been acting that last week.

With his attention on the wedding, fending off his father's manipulations, and the arguments he'd been having with Helen, Clark had not been one of his primary focuses that week. As he thought about it, however, he was reminded of Clark's early departure from his rehearsal dinner.

Jonathon and Martha claimed that he was having a migraine, which Lex thought odd at the time - given Clark's age, general health, and lifestyle.He wasn't unfamiliar with Clark's unpredictable exits, though, and had brushed the matter off.

In truth, now that he thought about it, Lex had been surprised when Clark had not shown up for his duties as best man, but at the time he was so grateful that Helen had given him a reprieve after their final argument that he hadn't thought too deeply about Clark's absence.

Apparently, that decision may have been a mistake. Even given his frequent exits, Clark had never just shirked on his duties or expectations. He should have taken that into consideration and questioned his friend’s absence more closely. What could have been so...

"Someone was threatening him." Chloe burst out.

"Who?"

"I don't know." Chloe gulped anxiously. "Pete said Clark only told him that it was someone claiming to be his birth father and that the sicko said if Clark didn't do what he wanted he'd hurt everyone Clark cared about."

Chloe continued, unaware of his distraction, but trying to explain her own lack of awareness of her friend's problems: "I don't know everything. We were fighting at the time, and he didn't tell me anything. I don't think he told anyone about it, until Pete walked in on him and saw his chest." Her voice trembled, as she tried to explain.

Listening to her odd ramble, Lex found it difficult to believe that Chloe had even the most basic concept of journalism, given the disjointed and incoherent manner she was was using to drag out her explanation: "His chest?”

"What are you talking about?" Lex questioned, trying to push her toward a semblance of clarity. 

"It doesn't make sense, Lex, why would someone want to hurt someone else like that?” She continued on, not seeming to recognize that he did not understand what she was rambling about, “Especially someone as nice as Clark?"

"What?!?" Lex hit the brakes so hard that the Ferrari fishtailed, the tires squealing and screeching his anger.

"Someone hurt Clark? How?" Lex's voice sharpened.

Despite seeing Clark in the hospital the previous spring, after his friend had been beaten up by a meteor-mutated classmate, Lex had begun to think Clark as invincible. His younger friend had come through so many trials that he knew of, and others he only suspected, without severe or permanent harm- that Clark's continued health had become a comforting certainty Lex had grown to silently rely on.

"What did the bastard do?"

"I - I don't know all of it," she hedged.

Lex's fingers clenched the steering wheel so tightly that the bones of his knuckles seemed ready to push through his already pale skin. Although the question was lingering on his lips, Lex truly didn't need to ask why Clark hadn't come to him for help: his friend's worst trait was that he tried to protect everyone but himself. The only question that remained was how badly he'd been hurt because Clark being hurt was the only conceivable explanation in his mind that would explain why the Kents would have given up the farm.

"Chloe, what did the fucking bastard do to Clark?" There truly weren't enough swallowed consonants in the sentence for him to have growled it, but every tone he spoke came out as razor sharp and cutting as a scythe.

"He - he burned something - some sort of symbol into Clark's chest. It wasn't small either like one of those cosmetic ones that you can get at a tattoo parlor. It went all the way across his chest and from his collar bone to his navel, at least two inches thick red and blistered so bad that I thought his skin must have melted."

"Fucking son of a bitch." the stream of invectives that followed seemed to startle and bemuse Chloe both for their venom and originality.

It wasn't until he had passed the turn off for Old Butler Road and had to turn around that Lex realized Chloe was staring at him.

"What?"

Her eyes cut away sheepishly, "Nothing."

"Chloe!" The note of hostility in his voice wasn't fair to her, he knew; so far as he knew, she'd had nothing to do with hurting Clark. Someone had, though, and badly. And, as a result, Lex was finding it more and more difficult to control his temper, and when he found the bastard who had hurt Clark, the sick son of a bitch just might not survive it.

"I ... It's just that I never realized. I should have seen it but I didn't. I just thought that you were trying to help him because of the accident."

"What didn't you see?" Lex asked caustically, losing patience with the young woman.

It might not have been fair to Chloe, but at the moment, Lex truly didn't care. It had been several trying months since he had last seen Clark; he hadn't fully recovered physically, much less emotionally, from his stay on the island; and he was in no mood to put up with whatever game she was playing.

"That it went both ways."

Before he could ask what she meant by that, they were at the entrance road to the medical center, and he was slowing to turn in when her hand shot out and clutched his wrist. She shook her head, silently, before turning away. When he turned to look at her, the tears streaming down her cheek confirmed his worst suspicions.

'Please no. Please no.' The denial cycled through his thoughts. 'She said them, but she couldn't have meant... She couldn't have meant all of them. Not Clark, too. Please not Clark.'

Over and over the denial repeated in his thoughts as he drove slowly past the medical center- in no hurry to get to the road's final destination.

ブレンキン

In their silence, Chloe's instinct as a journalist seemed to reassert itself, though her voice seemed rent by the silence as if it hurt to break through his unvoiced denials.

"I saw him that morning, at the farm, when he was late for the wedding, you know, but I was so angry that I didn't see how he was trying to get me away from there. I thought he was just lying to me, about Lana, but he was trying to get me away from there. That man, the one who was threatening him, must have been there. I didn't understand it, though, until I saw the explosion in my rear view mirror.”

“Explosion?” Lex' breath froze in his chest.

A soft rush of memory flooded his thoughts, recalling the call to the pilot that had stalled the take off of his honeymoon flight.

There had been an unexplained explosion in their flight path, but - once Lex had confirmed that the plant wasn't involved - he had brushed the notice off and sat back to wait the delay out – never realizing that it had involved his best friend.

“Pete said that man threatened Clark with some sort of bomb he called called a ship because of it's shape... You know what an ass Sheriff Ethan is and how much he hated Mr. Kent? He tried to blame it on Clark. Like he had built it himself, but the bomb squad that got called in from Metropolis said that there was now way Clark could have come up with something like it. They called it an NNEMP device, some sort of electronic magnetic something.”

“A Non-Nuclear Electro Magnetic Pulse bomb?” Lex whispered breathlessly, as he considered what such a device could have done to not just the town but the state itself, depending on the detonation point.

“Yeah, that's what they called it. Totally pissed the sheriff off when they said that Clark saved a lot of lives by getting it down into the Kent's storm shelter. One of the officers from Metropolis said that if the Kents hadn't had one of those 1950 type dual-storm shelters, it could have shut down a lot of important systems all around. From the air-traffic controllers to the power plants to everything else.”

“They were right.” Trust Clark to get himself into a situation where it was his life or half the state's.

“Here.” Chloe interrupted his thoughts quietly, ordering him to stop. “We can walk from here.”

Lex had been trying to ignore the solemn statuaries and headstones as they passed, but as he pulled to the side and cut the engine, he couldn't ignore the facts in front of him any longer.

They were nearly at the center of the Ceder Hill Cemetery. The Kent's farm hadn't been worked in months. Clark hadn't shown up on his doorstep the second he had arrived back at the manor. Clark hadn't somehow inexplicably shown up on the island to somehow save him yet again. Clark hadn't even made it to his wedding... because Clark was ... Clark was...

He wouldn't believe it. He couldn't believe it. Not until he had undeniable proof in front of his eyes. Clark would not be dead until he had firm incontrovertible evidence of that fact.  
Still, he sat in his seat, even as Chloe came around the front of the car and opened the door. The evidence he needed might be only 50 yards away, but for once his scientific mind was unwilling to go in search of it.

“Lex... it – It's not very far.” Chloe almost whispered.

Not very far, might as well have been millions of light years away, as far as his desire to travel that distance was concerned.

It had never truly been inconceivable that the Kents could have been killed... That Clark could have been killed. Given the number of incidents that had occurred in the two short years that he had known the family, the odds of such an occurrence was probably incalculably high.

He had simply never been willing to accept the possibility.

As long as the Kents survived ... despite all of their trials…

As long as Clark survived... there would be someone untouchable - incorruptible, in Lex's life. Someone he could depend on... Someone he could...

“Lex, please.” Chloe's voice softened as she reached to pull his nearest hand off the steering wheel.

He nodded, knowing that as hard as it was for him, it was undoubtedly far more difficult for her. Lex had only known Clark for two years, while she had grown up as Clark's friend, had seen him on an almost daily basis, had been close to his family, had been accepted by Clark's parents...

Lex suppressed an unexpected surge of jealousy toward the girl, jerking his hand out of her grasp as he pushed himself out of his seat. He understood now why there had been occasions where various monarchs had been tempted to kill the messenger.

“Where?” His voice crackled like breaking ice as he moved further away from her, rejecting the sympathy he saw in her eyes.

She remained silent as she turned and walked toward a broad headstone set beneath the statue of the Archangel Raphael.

Pausing when he noted three names carved into headstone, Lex tried to breathe against the invisible steel straps compressing his chest, starving his lungs and mind of oxygen, starving his soul of something as meaningful…

No.

It had been over seven years since his last asthma attack.

He would not allow himself to succumb to one now.

He had survived the island, his wife's treachery, his father's manipulations, and Smallville itself...

He could survive reading his friend's name. He could. He could do that.

If Clark could sacrifice himself to save uncounted others, he could at least bear the pain of reading a name carved in marble.

Nevertheless, Lex's approach to the headstone was as slow as a funeral march. He chose to stand on the other side of the grave, ridiculously hoarding his jealousy of the young girl, as though it could protect him from the greater loss. Finally, when there was nothing left to do but acknowledge the names carved into the cold implacable marble, he knelt and quickly ran his fingers over first Jonathon's then Martha's name, before finally drifting to the name in the center.

Jon C. Kent Jr.

He was startled to see that a date of birth was not listed for Clark, until he remembered that his friend had been adopted. Apparently, no one knew his true birth date – only the year and day of his death. That thought seemed incredibly wrong to Lex: Clark, who had been so very alive, could only be identified by his death. The very concept seemed universally wrong.

“I never knew.” He finally murmured.

“What?”

“I never knew that Clark was named after his ... after Jonathon.”

“Lex,” Chloe's voice sounded suddenly strained and reedy. “Lex... tha- that's not Clark.”

“What?!?” Lex jerked up to stare at her uncomprehendingly.

“Mrs. Kent was pregnant. She and Mr. Kent weren't in the explosion itself, but on the road back to their farm and something of the blast must have reached them. They didn't survive the accident, but the doctor's took the baby, hoping that it was far enough along to survive. They were wrong.”

The horrible thought occurred to Lex that, at point zero, there might not have been enough left of Clark's remains to bury, but surely – if that were the case – they would have still included his name.

“He ... survived the explosion... ...at least ... physically, but ..." she whispered in an almost horrified tone as if his death had might have been the lesser of two evils. 

“But...” Lex prompted impatiently.

A strained and pallid glimmer of hope broke through Lex's thoughts, but as deeply as he clung to the need for evidence to prove Clark's demise before he could accept it - his need for confirmation before he would rely on the weak and flickering hope was deeper.

"After the explosion... he must have dug himself out of the basement, at least that's what it looked like when I saw him at the hospital. I guess he thought he needed to walk to get help, instead of waiting. I wish he had waited. God, I wish he had waited. Lex, he found his parents and carried his mom to the hospital, then went back with the ambulance for his father, but Mr. Kent had already died...”

Ignoring her obvious grief, Lex demanded as calmly as he could, "Chloe, where is Clark?" 

When she didn't answer, he prompted again, “Where's Clark?” 

“I don't know.” She admitted in a hopeless whisper. 

"What do you mean you don't know?" 

“After the doctors said they didn't think they could do anything for his brother, they let Clark hold 'Little Jon'. Lex, he died – in Clark's arms, but Clark kept holding him, his little brother, for what seemed like hours, not saying anything, just looking down at him. He didn't tell even them that Jon had died, until the sheriff came to question him.”

As much of a miracle as Clark's survival had been, the pain that his friend had suffered staggered Lex. Worse yet, Lex knew Clark well enough to anticipate where his friend would lay the blame – directly on himself.

“You aren't going to tell me that the sheriff arrested Clark, are you?”

Chloe silently shook her head, which came as no surprise to Lex; something in her earlier comment hinted at something more. If Clark had been arrested, she would have known where he was, but there was clearly more to it than that.

“What aren't you telling me, Chloe? Where's Clark?”

“I don't know, Lex! The sheriff took his statement, and the doctor took his little brother's body away, and he left... he just left. Everyone felt so bad for him, and looked for him everywhere, especially after the Metropolis Bomb squad started talking about what could have happened if he hadn't gotten the bomb down to their shelter. They made it clear that he'd saved a lot of people ding what he did, and with losing the Kents that way, everyone wanted to help, and so many people were talking about giving him a new home. Even some of the metropolis officers, after some of the locals started to talk about how nice Clark always was... but, no one could find him. The town chipped in for the Kent's funeral's and everyone expected him to be there. When he didn't show people started suggesting that he'd gone up to Loeb's bridge that night and that maybe the river needed to be swept, but the Sherriff wouldn't hear of it. Probably his last act as a sheriff too, turning down that request."

"So you have no idea where he went," Lex questioned, pressing for details.

"Not for sure. At the hospital, I tried to get him to talk about whether he knew if his mom had any family or if there were any other relatives he knew about. He wouldn't talk about it, though, and for a while I almost thought that the talk about Loeb bridge was right. At the hospital..he said something really strange well, something that that didn't sound very... well... it just made me think that he was maybe thinking about doing that.”

“What did he say?”

When they asked him what the baby's name should be recorded as, he said “Jon Clark Kent Junior. That's all he said, and they wrote it down, but after they walked away- I don't think he knew I was behind him and heard him when he said it – but he said 'the Kents died today'. When I asked him what he meant, he just looked straight through me. I could just tell... I'm sure he meant himself, too. I don't know why, or how I knew, but I knew. I really don't. I thought he was, you know, just grieving, but... when they started talking about the possibility of him jumping off the bridge and I didn't see him again - I thought maybe he had, until after Lana told me she'd found him in Metropolis. ”

“He's in Metropolis?”

Lex was severely pressed not to scream that she should have told him that in the first place, but knew that doing so would destroy any chance he had to get further information from her. Nodding, he knelt again, placing a hand against the gravestone as he made a parting promise to find their son and protect him from the lunatic who had caused their deaths. Finally, setting all other thoughts aside, he glanced up at Chloe.

“Let's go. There are better places we can talk about this.”

Agreeing, she quietly followed him to the car, then asked him if he could take her to their school newspaper office.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the help of an old friend, Lex returns from the island to discover that his was not the only life to go awry.
> 
> Written for: CLFF Prompts: H/C & Tagline- "He's afraid. He's alone. He's three million light years away from home."

Once they were settled into the Torch's cramped office, Chloe began without any other prompting.

“Lex, he's not like you knew him. It's almost as if Clark, the one we knew, really did die with his parents. I don't know whether he's gotten into drugs, or what, but the guy I saw in Metropolis, he – he – he isn't my friend.” Lex glared at her in disbelief.

In his opinion, there were infinitesimally few things that Clark could do to warrant ostracizing him, and that was through the lens of his own limited knowledge of Clark. In his opinion, drugs didn’t even make the list. Murder might not even make the list, and given what Chloe had just told him, he didn’t think that it was outside the realm of possibility. All the more reason to find Clark and save him before something of that nature could happen, if it had not already occurred.

“He's not the Clark I knew. Lana said almost the same thing...that he wouldn't even acknowledge what he'd once felt for her. She said he told her she was just a fairy tale and not even his fairy tale. A messed up one with St. George giving the princess to the dragon.”

“Wait a minute.” Lex interrupted, shocked at her words. “Say that again. Exactly, what did Lana say?”

“She said that he told her he'd never really loved her. That she was just the fairy tale princess, and it wasn't even a fairy tale he'd written but someone else's where Noble St. George gave the princess away to the dragon, not seeing the dragon for what it was. Why? What does it mean?”

“Why would he lie to us?” Lex murmured softly, not having expected this, of all things. “I was  
sure that he had a crush on Lana. What purpose would be served by lying about that?”

“He was the scarecrow.” She commented, as though that explained everything.

“Yes, I know, but I am surprised that you were aware of that fact.”

Clark had never seemed comfortable discussing the event with Lex, much less with Chloe, whom Clark had not infrequently complained about because she 'never let something go'.

She stared at him for several seconds, seeming to try to decide whether he truly hadn't understood what she'd meant, or whether he'd been just as oblivious as she'd always thought Clark was. After a moment, she pushed by him and pulled out the lower drawer of the desk she'd thought of as Clark's.

“He always hid his things here, you know? The private things that he didn't want his parents to get into.”

Lex raised an eyebrow at that, wondering whether she realized what that said about Clark's trust for his parents. Seeming to get the meaning of his glance, she shrugged.

“We made a deal one day, he'd answer ten questions for me, and in return I promised never to go through whatever he wanted to put in there.”

“And you abided by the terms of your deal?”

“Yeah, at least, until he left. After that, I thought maybe I could get a clue to where he'd gone.”

“Did you?”

“No, but it clued me in... in other ways.”

Although Lex was a master of the navigating through the ebb and flow of negotiations, giving subtle hints where they were needed, and anticipating the interests of the opposing party and meeting them half way when it benefited him to do so, he had no intention of indulging her any further. They were too far afield as it was.

“You were telling me that you don't know where he is now; do you at least have a starting point for where I can begin looking? Or any other details about the man who was behind this?”

From the way that she nodded with relief, before stiffening at his second question, Lex suspected that the afternoon's horrible revelations were not entirely over.

“Chloe, we've had enough mind games for one afternoon. Don't you agree? If you care anything about Clark, tell me what you know: every single detail. I cannot help Clark if I don't have all of the information.”

“The Aquarium, in Metropolis. He was clubbing there just before I caught up with him. There or the Bijou. He still had the stamps on his hand when I caught up with him.” Lex's eyebrows rose at the names of the clubs, though with different reasons for each, but he gestured for her to continue.

“Pete says the man's name was Joe Rell, or something like that, but...”

“Was?” Lex interrupted, immediately picking up on the importance of the past tense from her anxious tone.

“Pete… Pete said... you can't tell anyone this.”

“Chloe, I am Clark's friend. I have no intention of doing anything that could hurt him.”

“Pete... Pete thinks that ... that Clark...”

“Chloe... this is serious.” Although Lex suspected that he knew what she was going to say, he had to know for certain.

“Pete thinks Clark killed him. He says Clark told him, we wouldn't have to worry about him coming after us to get to him. Pete said he's pretty sure Clark… destroyed him.”

“Thank you,” Lex answered grimly as he rose to leave. It was no more than what he'd thought, but now he had a better understanding of the impulses driving his young friend away from the only home he'd ever known.

The doorknob was already in his hand before she worked up the nerve to jerk something out of the drawer, and rush forward, shoving it into his hand, before brushing past.

“I'll get a ride home from the Talon with Lana.” She choked out. “You should look through that. It didn't tell me where he was, but it told me a lot about him that I didn't know... that I never realized... It – it might help.”

ブレンキン

"Well?" asked Bruce Wayne, the only other person that Lex Luthor felt he could truly consider a friend – the only person, other than Clark, to stand his ground against impossible odds and not break Lex's trust despite the secrets that he knew they kept from him, yet.

"Where is this farmboy you were so eager to introduce me to?"

Pausing at the chilled bar, Lex grabbed a Tynant bottle and opened it slowly, seeming to consider the question, before asking, "What did you find on Helen?"

The dark-haired man quirked an eyebrow, but answered mildly, "I'm sorry, Lex."

"Don't be, I was nearly certain that would be the case when I learned that she'd survived. My father?"

"No, I don't think so; there is something going on there, but I think that's more in the Victoria range of backstabbing. The money in her account was from Morgan Edge."

"Edge?" Lex considered the name, shaking his head for a moment. "How much?"

"Fifty thousand." Bruce Wayne growled, seeming to take the low amount as an insult.

"Only a matter of convenience, then. Good, that should make matters easier." Lex dismissed the subject quickly. "Do you have time to spend a few days in Metropolis, perhaps hit a few clubs?"

"What am I missing, Lex? What happened with this farm boy of yours? You were gone long enough to have gotten the reunion out of the way, and I was under the impression that you were going to bring him back here for an introduction, before we settled down to business of keeping you alive while we got Helen, Lionel, and now Morgan Edge out of your life.”

“Anna,” Lex gestured for Bruce to hold his comments for a moment as he pressed the intercom and instructed his newly hired housekeeper to repack his belongings and inform the kitchen not to start dinner.

“We can't afford a distraction like this, Lex. If circumstances were different, a day or two showing off the iniquities of Metropolis to a wide-eyed rube still wouldn't interest me, but I might have gone along just to see you let your hair down. But, we don't have time for it - and I can't imagine what he could have done to make you think otherwise. Don't tell me that he swore he hadn't realized what he'd had until he'd lost it, confessed all those secrets that your sure he's holding behind those wholesome sun-dipped features, and promised to make it up to you - hence the road trip to Metropolis."

Lingering malaria, years of friendship, unspoken debts, the realization that Bruce was concerned with his safety, and the knowledge that- in his own way - Bruce was as dangerous an opponent as either Edge or his Father... were the only considerations that held Lex back from verbally filleting his friend.

Studying his eyes, Bruce must have seen something of Lex's feelings in his gaze, however, and he dropped his sneering tone as he asked again, "What happened with this farm boy of yours?"

"Would you care to guess how I've spent the last hour and a half? After I left the Kents?"

"I somehow doubt that I could even hazard a guess," his friend replied honestly.

"Parked at the edge of a cornfield, staring at sketches in a sketch book."

"My point exactly," Bruce's chuckle sounded somewhat forced, but Lex ignored it. "That wouldn't have been an entry in my top thousand possibilities list. An hour and a half? That must have been a fairly extensive study."

"Yes."

"Was the subject worth it?"

"In all honesty, I'm not certain I would have wasted my time on it," Lex commented, “I've certainly never understood why he did, but look for yourself. I left it in the Ferrari's glove compartment."

Sensing his friend's brow lift at the uncharacteristic lapse, Lex admitted, "I've already said I wasn't staying. The alarm is triggered, but you have the code."

When he refused to say anything further, Bruce turned and stalked out the door. Lex paused to momentarily savor the sight.

Watching his powerful friend move had been one of the few pleasures that he had afforded himself during his recovery from the island sickness he had succumbed to after the crash.

His doctor might have called it malaria, but to Lex's mind, familial betrayal and spousal treachery were not among the commonly-accepted presenting symptoms of the mosquito-borne illness. Shaking himself from his maudlin thoughts, Lex sighed at missing the moment.

Despite Lionel's aspersions whenever Bruce's name was brought up, likening him to a well-clothed, ham-fisted gorilla, Lex knew that his father admired and perhaps even envied his friend's physical attributes. An impromptu business discussion, held while Lionel was being fitted for a tuxedo, had Bruce's name as a description of desired costuming effects far more times than Lex was strictly comfortable with. Still, he supposed, given his father's dalliances with Victoria and probably Helen, he shouldn't be too surprised that his father shared similar tastes for the male form.

Perhaps, it was simply that, like Clark, Bruce was merely the fortuitous combination of natural beauty and strenuous activity... They both moved in manners that spoke of strength, speed, and agility, but where Bruce's focus on the lethal arts had given him a firm, planted, stalking stride while Clark's work on his parent's farm had given his gait, the semblance of a colt with the promise of a race horse -excitable, but completely non-predatory. At once, so similar and so opposite.

ブレンキン

 

When his friend returned, slowly pacing with Clark's sketchbook splayed open in one arm as he carefully studied then turned each page, Lex grabbed a sheet of paper and quickly scratched out the message:

ブレンキン __

 _No Settlement!  
You have a $50,000 deposit in your account from M.E._

 _If unsatisfactory -  
Similar arrangements can be made on my behalf, in  
substantially-sufficient amounts._

 _ブレンキン_

 

After glancing over his message once more to be certain that it would have the desired effect, Lex slipped it into the fax and pressed the transmission button to transmit the message for Helen to his attorney. The fax had barely been spit back out by the machine before it was swept out of his fingers.  
Depositing the sketch book gently on the desk, Bruce dismissed how quickly Lex retrieved the sketchbook with a knowing glance before reading over the message and chuckling darkly.

“Clever, Lex, very clever. To the unknowing eye, it would appear that you are attempting to be the magnanimous divorcee, rather than delivering a death threat. She can't counter without admitting to conspiracy to commit murder. Do you think she'll take the out?”

“She's intelligent enough to know that it's in her better interest to cut and run. There's a possibility that Edge might stoop to take care of the problem for me – simply to tie up loose ends. Either way, I don't care – so long as she doesn't interfere with finding Clark.”

“About that, Lex, I've looked through his sketchbook. I have to admit, he is a fair artist and must have been a fast-talker to get you to sit still for sketches, but I am afraid that I don't see what would cause you to spend half an hour going through it. I get that his sketches were rather flattering, but he was clearly trying to compliment you and get in your good graces...possibly gain you as a patron, but I don't see anything more to it. What am I missing?”

“Quite a bit, actually. I never sat for those sketches, Bruce. Clark drew them entirely from memory, and he never once mentioned his drawings, nor arranged for anyone else to drop hints about their existence. I've never seen them before today.”

If Lex had expected the suspicion to clear from Bruce's eyes with his explanation, he was sorely mistaken. Bruce's eyes grew stormy and his lips thinned into a grim semblance of calm. The truly telling hint to his emotions, however, was the fact that he took several long breaths before he finally spoke.

“Lex, I realize that no one may have ever mentioned this. Certainly, you would have never heard it at your father's knee, but obsession is not healthy – for anyone:”

“Not the obsessed.”

“Not the object of his obsession.”

“It is NOT a form of flattery.”

“It is NOT a substitute for love.”

“It. Is. Dangerous!”

"You should be backing away from this kid. Not, I repeat, NOT chasing after him, and certainly not turning your back on him if you somehow managed to find him.”

“Bruce, Stop. You don't know, Clark. You don't understand how we met, what it's meant. I don't know if he's obsessed, but it wouldn't have mattered if he was. I was, too.”

Bruce scowled at the comment, “And isn't that a healthy response? Ask yourself, Lex, are you really that obsessed with him? So obsessed that I never heard of this kid before I picked you up from the island? So obsessed that you were getting married and getting on with your life?”

“My God. You’re right. I’d forgotten how successfully that turned out.”

“That's beside the point. My point was that you, at least, seem to be in touch with reality. This kid doesn't. Did you look at his sketches? I mean did you really look at those sketches? There's some pretty disturbing images here. He hasn't just idolized you, he's iconified you! Made you a symbol of worship.

"Here, look. Look at this one. He's got you suited up as St. George bestowing gifts on the masses. And here, this one is worse. It's not just the hints of wings that he's given you with that bit of – what moonlight? - it's the image of him on the cross - martyring himself to you. What happens when you can't lift him from whatever cross he's carrying? People don't take it well when their Saints have feet of clay, Lex. If you've ever been inclined to take my advice, take it now and stay away from this kid. He's not stable...”

“Enough!” Lex's icy voice cut through his friend's rant. “I tried to explain to you that you have no concept what has been going on during the past two years, and you couldn't have picked out two better examples to prove that fact. You see them both as some sort of aggrandizement, and admittedly, there is some symbolism, but the irony is that, for the most part, they are accurate depictions.

"The first image: you remember the small chest that my mother gave me? The one she claimed was made from St. George's armor? The one I would never let you touch? I gave it to him, so he could give it to the girl I thought he liked. So I could give him the girl I thought he liked.”

“Why would you do that? That was one of the few mementos that you had left from your mother.” There might have equal amounts of hurt and confusion in Bruce's voice, but he hid them well.

“Bruce when we were at school, you saved me from the bullies and my father and the pressure I was under, for a while, at least... but Clark... Clark saved me from the future I had planned to have. The future I had believed I was doomed to or destined for as either my father's puppet or his enemy then successor. Clark gave me a new future.” He sighed at his friend’s disbelieving expression, realizing Bruce wouldn’t let it drop, not without the full debriefing, and probably not even then.

"The first time I met Clark was when he dived into the river after my car went over at the turn, we stopped at this morning. He risked his life, pulled me out and performed CPR to get me breathing again. I tried to pay him off with a truck, but he thanked me, told me how cool it was, and gave me the keys back, then tried to apologize in case he was hurting my feelings. It was such a simple gesture, but I found myself intrigued and we began to talk.”

“Okay, I'll grant you that took nerve” Bruce granted grudgingly, “It would have been a steep dive, but Lex that still doesn't explain the second image. Seriously, who imagines themselves crucified on a cross? It takes a pretty sick mind to do that.”

"I wouldn't argue with that." Lex conceded dryly. "When I found Clark, stripped, beaten, suffering after hours of exposure, trussed to a cross. Essentially crucified as you (and I both) noted as the football team's version of a scarecrow - I hardly categorized it as your typical Rockwell moment. If he saw me as his savior for cutting him down from the cross his schoolmates hung him on, I'm not inclined to reject him for it, but you should know that he's much closer to the role of saint than I ever have been. At the time, I attempted to convince Clark that he needed to take some offensive action, either to get revenge in the name of justice or simply as a preemptive strike. He didn't even think twice about it, but turned around and risked his life to pull one of his attackers out of a burning truck."

Dark eyes held his gaze, narrowed in disbelief. Bruce, when he doubted you, was daunting to study, even by his closest friends. Even to Lex, but Lex had no intention of backing down. Not on this.

Bruce's glare flickered with barely restrained anger. His lips thinned to a dangerously grim line. His high cheekbones seemed to sharpen.

Lex continued to hold his ground, silently daring Bruce to doubt him.

Bruce's jaw clenched at Lex's defiance. Based on his expression, Lex almost expected to hear a predatory growl escape his grinding teeth at any moment. Finally, a chill tone cut the silence.

“I'm still not convinced. If nothing else, your past history of indulging obsessed stalkers, goes against him. He sounds a bit too noble to me, and I'm sorry for saying this, Lex, but if he was truly as noble as you've described, I doubt that he'd have anything to do with you. You are hardly the saint he's made you out to be. But all that aside, I'm curious Lex; faith in others isn't exactly your strong suit. How can you be so very, very certain that he's stable? ”

“In all honesty, I'm not.”

“Lex,” Bruce growled warningly, clearly losing patience.

“While I was getting a bit of sun on a tropical isle, Clark's summer vacation consisted of having a sadist - who claimed to be his birth father- attack him, paint accelerant on his chest and light it up, then proceed to blackmail him using a NNEMP – that he only got into his parent's storm shelter in time to save half the state, but not in time to save his adopted parents nor his baby brother, who died in his arms. So no, Bruce, I am not entirely certain that he's stable. Would you be in his place? The only thing that I am certain of is that he's afraid. He's alone. He's...”


	3. Three Million Light Years Away from Home

**Metropolis** -

“It's tonight.” One of Edge's more pathetic thugs simpered, “Mr. E wants you to-”

“I know what Morgan wants.” Kal cut him off, enjoying how much the simple fact that he didn't cower to Edge brassed off his henchmen.

“Tell him I'll be there.”

Slipping a $50 into the phone and snapping it shut on the huffing and whining man, Kal turned, ordered a scotch and a Tynant, and slid the phone to the bartender.

“Consider it a tip.” Kal smirked as the man grabbed the phone and the fifty then hustled to get him the drink's he'd ordered.

Although Lex had never been so trite as to say it, money did talk, and what it said spread faster than gossip, itself. After the first night that he'd thrown fifties and hundreds down with every drink, the servers had been tripping over themselves to get him whatever he wanted and keep in his good graces. The fact that the money he was throwing down came straight from the money he'd gotten off of Edge's goons only made it sweeter.

A cobalt blue Tynant bottle slipped into his peripheral vision, and he nodded. They didn't even blink anymore when every drink he ordered was accompanied by a Tynant bottle that he never touched.

“It's tonight,” he murmured to people that he knew couldn't hear him. The fact that they weren't present to hear him or answer was precisely the point, but what he was doing that night would set matters to rights.

In just under three hours, he'd be right where Edge expected him to be - doing what the man expected of him: making use of Edge's plots against Lionel to get him into the LuthorCorp building and distracting the guards. While Edge's men worked to get into one of Luthor's minor vaultes, Kal was going to be destroying everything that Lionel had on anyone in Smallville, sealing the kryptonite Lionel had accumulated in the lead vaults, and using Edge's own explosives to take down the building around them - double crossing both Edge and Lionel ( if he could delay the man long enough to take him down with the building).

He didn't count on getting that lucky, but knew he was setting himself in the cross-hairs between two very dangerous men and was banking on the hope that pitting them off against each other would do what he couldn't.

ブレンキン

“Alfred, where is Dick? How far off? Good, tell him to divert to Smallvile. When he gets there, I want him to do a little research for me. Two names, Clark Kent, and Joe Rell – I'm not certain of the spelling. The first one is a student at the local high school. The second one I have no direct information on, but he may have connections to Kent. Tell him to go back as far as the local records take him, every scrap of paper on the both of them. No, I don't want to say why, yet. … Lex … Yes, he's fine. No, we haven't run into Lionel, yet. I'm sure he must know, but likely believes that Lex is still in Gothem. I'll tell him.”

Ignoring his friend's irritated glances, Bruce hid a soft smirk as Alfred gave him a laundry list of cautions to pass on to Lex. No doubt, Lex would hate being told what to do, but when an order came from Alfred, most of the time Lex would comply.

"Oh... Also, tell Dick to get friendly with some of the jocks on the football team. See what they have to say about Kent. No, we're an hour out from Metropolis. Lex has something he wants to look into first.”

Lex could say what he would about his obsessive, possibly unstable, farm boy, but until Bruce had hard evidence that the kid wasn't just one more threat to Lex, he wasn't going to let his guard down.

Closing the phone, Bruce turned to Lex, with a barely suppressed smile..

“Pull over. Alfred wants me to drive; he feels that given the level of medication your on, your judgment may not be capable with keeping up with your customarily preferred speed.”

Lex didn't pull over, of course, but Bruce truly hadn't expected that he would. The speedometer, however, did ease back from the manufacturer's top indicated speed.

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Tired of the Aquarium's cheesy blue lighting, Kal tossed another fifty to the waiter, who was removing his latest shot glass and bottled water, and bid him a good night.

He'd grown to like the kid, who was quiet, quick to show when Kal was ready for a new drink, and smart enough not to try for small talk, so usually tipped the boy every time he finished off a glass. The kid had probably pulled down $700 a night, every night Kal showed.

If he worked it well, he'd probably have enough left over after his classes at the community college were paid in full, to coast a month or two and visit a few places.

Kent had wistfully dreamed of doing something like that, but had never believed he'd have the money and had known that his parents would never have accepted it as a gift from his friend. Still, it had been nice to daydream about.

Kal didn't waste time dreaming about things like that. A dream like that didn't have any relevance in his life. He had all he needed: his motorcycle, the Ferrari he'd liberated from the show window, enough money to throw down on a waiter's education, and a goal. A goal he was about to reach.

What more could he want?

In celebration of the fact, Kal --feeling doubly generous-- pulled off five hundreds, and stuck them in the shot glass as the kid picked it up.

“I don't think I'll be around again,” He explained as the boy's eyes widened. “You have someplace safe to put it?”

“In ... In the ba-nk,” the kid stammered- 23 and intimidated by someone six years younger than him. It was a little sad really. Two more hundreds joined the shot glass.

“Banks aren't safe. Take my word for it and find someplace safe and don't spend it too quick. Save some to enjoy after you're out of school. What's your name, anyway?”

“Alex.” The kid answered with seeming surprise; he might have told Kal before, but it hadn't stuck.

The roll of hundreds that had just been a nuisance in Kal's back pocket dropped on Alex's tray beside the shot glass.

“Have a good night, Alex.”

“Yes, Sir!”

Kal grabbed his leather jacket and pulled it on. The motorcycle, tonight, he thought. He needed to stop by the apartment to change and get more money, in any event.

ブレンキン

The Bijou's dance floor throbbed with bursts of scarlet light, loud music, and gusts of synthesized fog that swept across the Bijou's dance floor, seeming to caress each dancer before winding away.

One couple, in particular, seemed to own the floor, dancing so sensuously against each other that, at first glance, Bruce thought they might have been professional dancers putting on a floor show for the elite alternative men's club. A second glance at their attire convinced him otherwise; they were both clearly patrons, if uncommonly sensual ones.

Despite his intention to stay alert and on guard until the farm boy showed, Bruce found himself watching the two. He had already scanned the club, and so far, he hadn't seen anyone fitting the profile that Lex had given him: plaid and innocence. There wasn't even a strong reason to believe that the boy would be there the first time they showed up. Stake-outs, in Bruce's experience, rarely turned up something of value the first night out. It wouldn't hurt to watch, he decided.

The couple were a well matched pair, dark and light, brunette and blond, golden-skinned and fair, muscular and delicate – dancing a mimicry of domination, with each testing the other's limits, in surprising shows of strength and flexibility. Their polarities only made the dance more interesting, but Bruce quickly dismissed the blonde.

Although the young man was tall and lean, pleasantly shapely with the tight muscle definition and limberness of a swimmer or professional dancer – his glowing bright blue eyes, sun-blonde hair, and a sheen of perspiration were almost too fair... too feminine in his baby blue silk shirt and tailored dove gray slacks. His was too smooth, for Bruce's taste, too liquid in his movements, too supple in his submission.

His partner, by contrast, held Bruce's gaze. Although the young man had his back to them, Bruce was well accustomed and skilled in sizing others up. It was an ingrained survival instinct that he had honed to a fine art. A single glance at the dark-haired brunette told him that beneath the tailored black silk shirt and expensive, skin-tight leather slacks, and simple black, western-cut boots- the man was young, agile, strong, with a solid, fighter's build that neither weighed him down nor interfered with the grace and fluidity of his movements. His strength was readily apparent; where the blonde was visibly damp and panting from his exertions, the brunette repeatedly lifting his partner in a series of sensual, controlled slides that were as much frottage as they were dancing, yet seemed entirely unaffected, breathing easily, not even having broken a sweat.

Had the man been part of a gang that Bruce's alter ego was facing, Bruce would have taken him down first as the leader and most dangerous. There was no question that he would have been the leader.

In the couple's ebb and flow of dominance, the brunette's surrenders were defiant. Though supple in his bending, it was clear that he bent only because he chose to - not because he was or could be conquered. This young man appealed to Bruce as both a sparring partner and a bed partner, and he was hardly surprised that Lex's eyes had fixed on the brunette, as well.

Lex had always gravitated toward strong, dominant, and dangerous men and women as partners. Yet another reason that made Bruce wary of the Lex-obsessed farmboy.

After a quick scan of the room turned up nothing in the way of an awkward, plaid-clad teen, Bruce returned his gaze to the couple - just as the primal writhing beat of the song faded and was replaced with the cheerful upbeat tune that had nothing to do with the more intriguing half of the pair. Carefully lowering his dance partner, the man turned as a waiter slipped out of nowhere with a prearranged drink order, giving Bruce his first glimpse of the young man's stunning profile.

"Clark!" Lex gasped..

Before Bruce could turn to search for the teen, the man he'd been pausing to admire spun on his heel and froze. A shot glass slipped from the young man's fingers and shattered breaking through his shock. The brunette staggered a step forward then another, suddenly ungainly and wavering as he moved sluggishly toward Lex. He'd barely taken his fifth step before his knees bent awkwardly and his stamina seemed to abandon him in a rush.

Sweeping his gaze back and forth between them, Bruce was momentarily dumbstruck- and jealous - although – whether of Lex or the brunette- he wasn't entirely certain. The man... No, full face, he could see the brunette was clearly still in his late teens... and gorgeous, a living wet dream. In retrospect, Bruce could easily see how his stability might be a lesser consideration compared to his other ... virtues. In fact, it took more than a moment for his own surprise to ebb and his sense of reason to reassert itself.

Bruce's reason did, ultimately, return as Lex finally approached the shocked young man to nearly be thrown back as Kent, still on his knees, threw his arms around Lex and clung to him as if the floor would disappear out from under them at any moment.

Seemingly taken aback at the gesture, Lex awkwardly wrapped his arms around the young man's shoulders and lifted a pale hand to stroke the shining black hair oblivious to the attention they were drawing.

"Perhaps we should take this somewhere private." Bruce murmured softly as he gestured to the couple's previous audience.

Lex gave a sharp nod and edged slowly out of the brunette's embrace, speaking gently to the young man in a whisper that Bruce couldn't hear when the teen lifted quizzical, emotion-filled eyes to meet Lex's gaze. After a glance around, Kent seemed to acknowledge the problem, then stood shakily, apparently sapped of his former grace and stamina. Patting the blonde on his arm, he assured his dance partner that he was fine, and gesture toward a hall that Bruce knew from experience led to the private, members-only rooms.

ブレンキン

Staring at the emptied shot glass in his hand, Kal uttered a quiet, bitter chuckle at the irony that was his life.

Lex had once told him that fate had a sick sense of humor and comic timing, but he had never understood what his friend meant before now.

Turning the shot glass around and around in his fingers, Kal stared into its shallow depth as he felt them waiting for him to comment. Waiting patiently... and he almost resented them for their patience because it meant they pitied him ... because it meant they knew... or thought they knew.

"You're alive." He finally sighed, ignoring their surprised stares.

Even Isaac, who'd been sort of a friend since he'd come to Metropolis, wasn't used to him saying anything so stupidly obvious.

"I'm... I'm sorry." Their stares grew almost tangible as he tried to explain, "I didn't believe it was possible. You've survived a lot of stuff, but a plane crash in the middle of the ocean... I didn't think... I saw the pictures of the crash site on the news. It was ..."

He broke off, unable to describe the gut-wrenching vertigo that had swept through him at the sight of debris sinking into the oil glazed water like a hand full of coins in a wishing well – even with the ring’s protection.

“If I had realized, I would have tried to find you, to...”

“Clark, no,” Lex interrupted him, and Kal almost successfully hid his flinch at the Kents’ name for him.

After studying his friend's expression, he decided Lex might not have seen, but the other one, the one he hadn't been introduced to yet (who might have been a body-guard (or attack dog) from his build and the suspicious way that he was watching Kal) noticed it, and noticed Kal noticing him see it.

  
Damn it.

Not that he didn't want Lex to have an observant body guard, especially now. He did. It had become his highest priority from the moment the dance floor's strobe-ing scarlet light had swept across Lex, standing, impossibly-alive, on the dance floor.

Kal had suffered numerous glimpses/visions/daytime nightmares of his friend since he'd abandoned Smallville. He'd found himself following tall, slim, bald men through crowds until he'd could get enough of a glimpse of them to know for certain that it wasn't Lex. His heart had never believed that Lex was dead, but his mind had never allowed for the possibility that his friend was alive - and following his heart had lead only to tragedy and destruction in other matters, so he had been no longer willing to trust it, with anything.

He had even been ready to disregard Lex's presence on the dance floor as one of his more familiar visions of Lex, it wasn't the first time he'd imagined Lex crossing the dance floor to meet him, even dressed in his Armani coat and decked in bandages - except this time Lex had not been wearing a look of disgust or betrayal or accusation.

Then he'd heard Lex's voice. That had been new; and his 'sight' – without him even trying – had focused on the impossible, blood and veins, a rapidly beating heart, and lungs and scars, the internal scars that he had learned so well from his surreptitious study of Lex before... before now.

“You're alive,” he murmured again, almost to himself, ignoring the other one's eyes studying him up and down.

The man was clearly competent, and Kal was grateful for that, particularly tonight, but he really didn't want the man putting questions in Lex's head that Lex would figure out the answers to, at least not before the night was over.

“Yes. Yes, I am.” Lex murmured softly, almost sounding amused, but his tone was a shade too soft, too gentle tone, warning Kal the direction the conversation would soon take..

“How?” he asked, hoping to redirect and keep the line of questioning away from him as he worked through a plan to preserve his goal, while still protecting Lex.

If it were for more than an hour or so, or a night, really, he wouldn't have stood a hope. Lex was dogged in his pursuit of certain topics – including Kent; however, Kal only needed enough of a distraction to last the evening, and after that... it would be a moot point.

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Lex wasn't surprised that Clark's behavior was off. As he'd said to Bruce, he doubted that his friend was or could be entirely stable, after what he'd suffered. Oddly, though whatever was off was strangely familiar..

While everything about his friend seemed markedly different, from his clothes, to his walk, to his voice, everything on the surface seemed as if he was speaking to an entirely different person, there was some characteristic that he couldn't pin down, that althought it was undeniably not a trait of the Clark he knew, it was still a trait that he associated with Clark. Still, it was difficult to identify, when every trace of Clark's... distinct personality... his Clark-ness, for wont of any thing less trite, was being submerged or sublimated in his anguish and obvious grief.

“How?”

Although Clark's tone was curious, there was an edge of some other need there as well, but Lex grimly refrained from probing until he had a better understanding of his friend's emotional state.

“Bruce Wayne,” Lex introduced his older friend, rolling his eyes at Bruce when he noticed that the older gruffer man was brooding again. This was soooo not needed at the moment.

“He's an old friend from the Bored Boy Billionaire's Boarding School,” Lex commented lightly – futilely hoping to generate a smile – from either of them.

“He had the resources to pick up where my father's abbreviated search left off and tracked the possible currents that could have dragged someone on a flotation device to the island I was washed up on.”

“It's good you had someone you could depend on.” Clark commented tonelessly.

“Clark...” Lex paused taking a slow breath as he tried to decide whether Clark had actually flinched and why, but gave it up for too little information and continued “that's not what I was implying.”

“Sir,” a waiter interrupted, setting a tray beside Clark with another scotch and a Tynant bottle,“Mr. Sark, asked me to inquire whether you are feeling better?”

Despite himself, Lex was surprised and impressed.

He couldn't remember Sark from his own partying days, but the manager or assistant manager had apparently remembered his bottled water preference.

Clark's “I'm fine” hardly surprised Lex; Clark had said the same thing just after a classmate had thrown him high enough in the air to damage the roof of the car he landed on – before he went to the hospital.

The reaction of the waiter and Clark's dance partner, when Lex took the offered Tynant bottle, however, was on an entirely different scale.

They openly gaped at him, then turned to back to Clark, seeming to wait for a reaction, before gaping at him again when none was forthcoming.

The waiter was first to recover, as one might expect of someone who served drinks in an exclusive alternative club, and turned to get the other drink orders before taking a very thorough up and down scan of Lex and rushing out.

“Would someone care to explain what that was all about?” Lex pointedly asked the dance partner.

The younger man's attention was fully on Clark, though, as he asked, “He's your Tynant guy?”

“Isaac... now's not the time...”

“His Tynant guy?” Bruce finally chipped in, when Lex couldn't seem to wrap his mind around the question he wanted to ask.

“Yeah, as long as Kal's been coming in here, as far as I know,” the dancer, apparently named Isaac, answered, “he's only had one drink order: Dalmore 40 and a Tynant. The Scotch, he drinks; the Tynant, he never touches ... nor lets anyone else, for that matter.”

Lex was stunned by the blonde's comments, as much for what they implied as for the sudden anxiety that colored Clark's expression at Isaac's explanation.

“It's become sort of a contest, between some of the more ambitious regulars to see who he'll let 'drink from his bottle', so to speak.” The blonde offered wryly as Clark finally showed a comfortingly familiar flare of of mortification – groaning in embarrassment seeming far more like the Clark he had known prior to their horrid summers. .

“I was wondering why they wouldn't just take the hint.” Clark sighed with an unexpected trace of naivete.

Despite the sensuality of their earlier dance, Lex could easily believe it. As far as he'd known, Clark had always been completely oblivious to his own desirability.

“Oh, now, don't you worry, Kal.” Isaac chirped in, “ After what you said to Andros, I'm fairly certain that everyone has taken the hint.”

An actual, and very welcome blush, appeared on Clark's cheeks and Lex couldn't resist, “What did he say?”

“I just informed him that the bottle wasn't his to drink.” Clark answered too quickly with a significant glance at Isaac, but it was all to apparent to Lex, from the wry expression on the blonde's face that Isaac was feeling catty, and his supposition was quickly proven correct.

“Oh Kal, don't be so modest. You're exact words were so perfect, they almost had him drooling before you got to the punch line, and that was a knock out.”

Crossing his legs pertly as he turned to face Lex and Bruce, Isaac smirked and imitated Clark, with a tone that would have been nearly perfect, if the man weren't trying to suppress a giggle...

“Andros,' Kal said in that soft husky way he has,” Isaac self-narrated in a conspiratorial whisper, “ ' Andros, if what you're looking for is a phallic symbol... to wrap your lips around...' AND THEN … Kal dipped his fingertips in the dew of his tynant bottle and rubbed it across Andros's bottom lip … like well like something else was going to happen …” Isaac broke in, interrupting his own story to mimic Clark rubbing a finger up and down the bottle suggestively, “I swear I thought that Andros was going to blow right then and there. He was practically shaking and licking his lips at the thought of wrapping his lips around something else ---heck, we all were -- when Kal went in for the knockout punch, 'The tailpipe on my dark horse is available, and far safer to touch.' Andros is a great big bruiser too, but after Kal let go of his wrist, he didn't try to touch anything of Kal's again, did he hon?”

“No,” Clark's answered quietly before throwing back the scotch, swallowing far more smoothly than Lex had expected, and turning the tumbler upside down on the tray.

As Clark's fingers released the glass, Lex's eyes caught the ruby flash of light reflected from a ring that he had seen Clark wear only once before and the familiarity that had been niggling in the back of his thoughts came into a much sharper focus.

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“Enough talking.” Kal announced, using Isaac's little revelation to distract Lex the remainder of the way from his intended topic.

He had almost made the mistake of telling Isaac to shut up, when he caught the startled and off-balanced expression in Lex's eyes and decided to take advantage of it. A moment of embarrassment was worth it if he could keep Lex from asking the wrong sort of questions.

“Let's dance! Let's celebrate the fact that you've survived.”

Lex's eyes seemed a bit too keen for the briefest second, and Kal wasn't certain that he'd take the bait, but after a second, Lex nodded in agreement.

“Okay. Just give me a minute with Bruce, and then we can celebrate that we both survived our summers.” Lex added, making it clear that he wasn't going to drop the topic forever, but it wouldn't matter. Kal didn't need forever, he just needed 78 minutes.

“Come on Isaac, lets give them a bit of privacy.” Kal regretted it immediately when he said it, but did not look back to determine whether his inadvertent slip had been right on the mark.

Lex had told him a bit of what had gone on at the “Bored Billionaires Boarding” school, as he called it, and if this Wayne was the classmate that he thought, Kal absolutely did not want to think about what might be going on in the room while they were alone. It was none of his business; especially after the man had tracked Lex down to what must have been an abandoned island, something Kal hadn't even thought about doing, despite all of the times he'd been haunted by Lex's image.

It wouldn't matter to Kal for much longer, anyway.

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"Lex, we REALLY need to talk about leaving out important details... That kid is no more the innocent farm boy than I am. More to the point, he's trying to be evasive about something, and I want to know about what." Bruce growled.

As attractive as he found the young man, he didn't appreciate people who played games - regardless of the fact that his own life required him to engage in intricate mind games that he would never tolerate from others, to protect his dual identity. This was particularly true when the person playing games was jeopardizing someone he cared about - in this case, Lex. Worse yet was the knowledge that Lex didn't know how to not play games, and it appeared that they were already starting.

The color of Lex's eyes seemed to darken as they bored into his, and Bruce nearly growled with frustration when a smirk curled his lip.

"If you're finished posturing, I have question for you."

"Posturing? You think my irritation over being misled, when I'm trying to protect you, is posturing?"

"No, Bruce, I think you're posturing because you've forgotten that I know your 'type' and your kinks almost as well as you know mine. If you can honestly tell me that you weren't filling out the line of your slacks rather nicely just watching Clark and his friend dance, then that little penthouse in Tokyo that you've liked for so long is yours."

Making a swift mental note to kill Dick for telling Lex that he could repay him for the rescue with the deed to the Tokyo penthouse, Bruce huffed, "Keep your penthouse. What did you want?"

"Two questions really," Lex's voice was annoyingly smug when he answered, "I've seen Clark behave with this air of hyper-masculinity before, when he just happened to be wearing same class ring he's wearing now- a ring that I've only seen him wear that one time. Would you happen to have anything - in that trunk compartment I'm not supposed to know of - that might be able to tell whether it could be physically influencing him somehow?”

Tensing at the reminder of the unspoken agreement that they had somehow come to (that Lex would not ask inconvenient questions so long as Bruce never denied what Lex had figured out), Bruce nodded, “I might. What type of influence are you thinking of? Contact poisoning? I doubt there would be a sufficient amount of a metallurgical component – such as lead- that would have a noticeably heightened effect with immediate contact.”

“No, actually, I am thinking along the lines of radiation. Do you remember the green meteorites that I mentioned, which have been linked to a low level radiation and spontaneous erratic effects? If the gemstone in his ring was cut from a different color spectrum of the meteorite, theoretically, it could be having some effect on Clark.”

“That's a long shot,” Bruce commented doubtfully, even as he drew his car keys from his pocket. “What's your second question?”

“Is there any possibility that I can talk you out of the overcoat and riding leathers that you picked up from First Gear, yesterday? I'll replace them.”

“What?” Bruce's tongue found itself in a sudden Sahara as he considered Lex in the side-laced leather motorcycle pants that he had purchased for Dick's birthday... for Dick, who was at least a size smaller than Lex, possibly two sizes tighter than Lex.

Smooth pale lips turned up in an all-too-smooth smile, as Lex explained, “The last time I saw him wearing that ring; he behaved very, very similar to how you behaved, just before you left for Princeton. I'm fairly certain, I have a good idea how to ensure that he doesn't try to leave town.”

Remembering how his own fascination with Lex had exploded from a platonic, if protective friendship, into something infinitely more complex – just when he had assumed that their friendship would fade as they went to separate schools, Bruce nodded dryly.

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“Da-hhhh-mn Kal!” Isaac rumbled low in his throat, looking over his shoulder at the door that Kal was studiously trying to ignore.

“I thought the other guy was hot, but ... your Tynant guy, seriously, where did you find a sexy beast like that?”

“What?” Kal glanced at his friend in surprise.

Was Isaac just realizing, now, how attractive Lex was? They'd been in the same room for at least fifteen minutes, and Isaac wasn't usually so slow on the uptake. The way the blonde was looking over his shoulder with lust-glazed eyes made him turn, and for a second time, that evening, Kal's shot glass dropped from nerveless fingers.

Lex...

Lex had exchanged his wool overcoat and three-piece Armani suite for ... raw sexuality.

The only items of clothing he'd seemed to keep from earlier were black, Italian dress shoes.

Rising from those: supple, black, leather pant legs, that were skin-tight – or tighter - laced up the sides so that Kal would be able to see every curve if it weren't for the leather trench coat that seemed to float with every step, giving Kal seductively brief glimpses of tight lines and sculpted muscle tone. Matte silver buttons on his placket peaked out from under the tabs of a fitted leather vest, snugged tight to an unbelievably slim waist.

Following the barely visible line of buttons to the vest's collar, his breath caught as his gaze fell on bare collarbones, made all the more visible by the trench coat's open collar, and the slim solid throat that Kent had always longed to stroke.

Before he realized it, Lex was directly in front of him and smiling at him with a quirk to his lips that almost dared Kal to reach out and touch.

“I believe you wanted to dance?” They were so close Kal could almost taste Lex's whispered invitation.

“Yesssss.”

Cool fingers wrapped around his, pulling Kal forward onto the dance floor, just as a music changed again from the popular techno beats that usually bored Kal to a wordless voice that lifted from the speakers in an erotic, moaning cry - met and lifted by heavy bass drum beats.

Kal's heartbeat quickly joined the growl of drums as Lex wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer.

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Loud admiring whispers circulated rapidly around the edge of the dance floor, barely distracting Bruce from the sight of Lex seducing a very, very willing Kent.

"Is that?"

"Yeah, that's what Kev says."

"Damn, no wonder."

"They're fuckin' hot together. Shit... Kev! Hey Kev, get me a drink."

"Damn, who would'a thought that Kal was the meat wetter? God, that's ..."

"Coy's right about one thing," Kent's friend, Isaac, sighed conversationally.

"What's that?" Bruce asked, only marginally listening.

"I've never seen Kal dance like he was born to be a plaything."

Bruce nodded, not commenting. He had already taken in the differences from Kent's earlier display. In their current dance, there was no question of dominance. No exchange of roles in the power play. Lex was the possessor, Kent the possessed.

A touch on his shoulder, Kent was on his knees.

A tug of his hair, he was swaying to his feet.

Lex pulled him close, he melted.

Lex pushed him away, he crumbled.

Even more to Bruce's surprise, the absolute submission that had turned him off of the blonde seemed far more intense and attractive on Kent. But then, Isaac had been playing a part - Kent, Bruce suspected, was not.

At the moment, they were both on their knees- Lex at Kent's back; Kent's wrists, crossed above his head, were caught and held in place by Lex's hand; Lex's free hand on Kent's hip guided their rocking undulations to the low rolling jun-jun beat of hide drums. Their hips thrust suggestively to the unpredictable stacatto crack of wood strikers overlaying the background music. Freezing as the music fell away and was replaced by eeirie erotic vocals, Kent shuddered as Lex's hand left his hip - fingers slipping into a gap between buttons of his shirt to stroke his abdomen. Lex's lips hovered at Kent's ear for barely a breath before the brunette collapsed against him, spent.

The circled audience broke into applause as the club's sound manager called a break between sets.

While the applause slowed and died, Kent staggered to his feet and pulled Lex up to stand with him. For half a second, they stood - facing each other, hip to hip, then Lex murmured something, and Kent wrapped his hand around the back of Lex's skull to pull him into a steamy kiss.

What happened next caught Bruce completely off guard.

Kent drew back for a moment before dropping his head forward a little too quickly, if he intended to press their foreheads together. At that moment, Lex's legs seemed to go out from under him. Kent seemed to expect it, however, catching and lifting Lex before he fell, and that fact sent Bruce's thoughts whirling through a quick review of their last few minutes. .

He was certain that Kent hadn't anticipated Lex's arrival, nor touched much less spiked Lex's water bottle. A skin-absorbent chemical agent was unlikely as Kent had not left their presence and his outfit was to tight to conceal ... well… anything really. There was, of course, the ring; it was not unknown for rings to conceal secret compartments, but Lex had controlled Kent's hands during most of their dance... until the kiss.... the kiss... Poison Ivy...had caught him off guard by her toxic.

"Here, take him..."

Before Bruce had considered the matter for more than a breath, Kent was barely inches in front of him, pushing Lex into his arms and ordering: "Get him out of here, away from Metropolis... Keep him away from Smallville... Hell, get him out of Kansas if you can- tonight!"

After pushing Lex into Bruce's arms, Kent nearly on his heals to the blond, ordering, "Isaac, I want you to go with him, too."

"Kal, I don't think..."

"No, too many people have seen us together. I don't want anyone who might try to come after me to find you, and if someone does find you, I don’t want you to be alone. I don’t know about this guy, but if Lex trusts him, you’ll be safer with them."

"Kal..."

"Isaac, these are bad men. Men who make Andros look like a kindergarten bully."

The blonde paled and nodded, clearly unhappy as he turned to follow Bruce. Bruce was no happier, but unlike Isaac, he had no intention of following the kid's orders, much less without finding out what potential threat lay behind it.

"Tell me what's going on, now, and why I should do anything you say!" Bruce barked, jerking Lex reflexively away even as his thoughts caught up to the fact that what Kent was saying didn't make sense as a threat.

Almost rolling his eyes, Kent enunciated his words with insolent care as though speaking to a toddler: “I'm trusting you. If you care enough to track him down when even his father had abandoned the search, I'm hoping you care enough to keep him safe, and hopefully, you're the kind of man, who will let Isaac tag along until he can find some place safe."

"Nice evasion, but it won't work.” Bruce snarled, trying to restrain his temper, “Tell me, what's going on, and why should I trust you?"

"God!" Kent sighed harshly, grabbing his arm and pushing him toward the back door.

"Look, I don't care if you trust me, but I will tell you what's going on - if only so you can get an idea of how dangerous it is to hang around. Tonight, in a few hours, Lex's father and Morgan Edge are double crossing each other, and using me to do it."

Nearly dropping Lex in his shock, Bruce cursed under his breath, spun towards the back door, and ordered over his shoulder, "Both of you, come on. We need to have a little talk.”

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TBC


	4. Chapter 4

"Sorry, no can do." Kent smirked then turned to Isaac again. "Look, here are the keys to my bike. Take it with you. Take care of it; it belonged to ... to someone who was important to me. So, just … just take care of it, and Isaac, once you get the chance, check out the saddlebags. There's something in there for you plus enough in the saddlebags to cover you for a few months."

Before Isaac could protest again, the fine thread holding Bruce's temper in check snapped.

Quickly depositing Lex in the spider's passenger seat, Bruce growled, "that wasn't a request," as he  
turned to grab the idiot, push him up against the car, and ... the brunette was no where in sight.

"What the... Where is he?"

Isaac's only answers were a smirk and a shrug, until Bruce glared and stepped toward him menacingly.

Lifting his hands helplessly, Isaac commented, "I guess Tynant didn't tell you that Kal doesn't take orders well."

"Shit," Bruce cursed under his breath because, during their impromptu game of a thousand questions on the drive from Smallville, Lex might have actually mentioned something to that effect – with examples.

 

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Listening to Wayne and Isaac from around the corner, Kal smirked at the older man's irritation, taking a small perverse satisfaction from goading the man. As he'd expected, Wayne ordered Isaac into the car, a sweet-looking spider that had to have been bought under Lex's influence, and ordered Isaac to drive while he took the motorcycle. He actually didn’t mind the guard dog riding Kent’s motorcycle. The man looked like he could handle it- probably a lot better than Isaac could have- and Lex would make certain that both Isaac and the bike were taken care of without Kal needing to ask.

It was just how Lex was.

Not that Lex couldn’t throw Kal a curveball or two. He already had -twice over: appearing impossibly- incredibly alive in the center of the dance floor, lit by strobe lights - breathing and alive – and stepping out of the back room clad in leather and sex appeal.

The effects on Kal from seeing Lex clad in skintight leather were beyond indescribable. Kal couldn't remember feeling as he had in those brief moments even once in his entire life, and the possibility of feeling that way again was a temptation almost beyond Kal’s resistance.

He could still feel the ghosts of Lex’s fingertips running up his side, curling around his wrists, stroking the edge of his scar: the scar that Lex shouldn’t have even known was there, just like so many other things that Lex shouldn’t have known, but did.

A soft whisper of wind carried the memory of Lex’s breathy voice back to his ears, “My Dragon.” The feel of Lex’s soft breathy voice – a hot feathery caress on the back of his neck – had been intoxicating making him feel light headed and drunk when no amount of scotch ever could.

“My scarred and jaded dragon,” Lex had breathed in his ear, as cool fingertips had stroked the scar that never seemed to stop burning.

“You can’t outrun the chains of your past…”

“You can’t outrun me, and you know you don’t want to.” Lex had been right, and Kal had almost submitted completely.

Lex could have left at that moment, and Kal would have been content to trail after him as tamed as his guard dog – leashed by Lex’s whim and will.

But, then they had kissed, and Kal had suddenly understood fate’s gift.

Fate had given him one perfect, impossible moment with Lex to send him off to an undeniable goal with an inescapable outcome.

It wasn't the first time that Kal’s certainty had begun to waver over the past days. He had come to appreciate the city that Lex had called home. Metropolis was a complex mix of darkness and light that had reminded Kal so much of the friend he had believed was lost. He had even allowed himself to begin to feel at home in its depths - as he plotted to turn Edge and Lionel against each other.

When he had thought about the possibility of survival, Kal had sometimes wondered what life could be like if he simply disappeared with Isaac, but that had been an illusion. Lex was right. He couldn’t escape his past.

He couldn’t escape it, and he wouldn’t burden anyone else with his darkness, but he wasn’t beyond using that darkness to take down the father, who had made so much of Lex’s youth a living hell or the man who had paid to have Lex killed.

It was more than simple revenge, now, though. By taking down Lionel and Edge, he could ensure Lex’s safety - with just one small change in plans.

 

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Flipping open the phone that he had picked up from a convenience store on the way to the Bijou, Kal quick dialed the direct line to the Luthor suite. When a soft, tense voice answered, Kal laughed softly into the phone.

“Dr. BryceYou sound anxious. What's wrong?”

“Clark? Is that you? Why are you calling this number?”

“Oh, I'm sorry to bother you, I just thought I’d return a favor; you've done so much... I just wanted to let you know that Lionel and Morgan are getting together, tonight.”

“Why on earth do you think I’d be interested in something like that?” She stammered in response, and he played with his words for a couple of seconds until he came up with just exactly what he wanted to say.

“Oh, aside from the fact that you've been sharing a suite with Lionel, and might worry if he's late or if he doesn't return at all? I don’t know, I just thought you'd want to know."

"Clark, look, it really isn't how it seems."

"Don't worry, I understand: you're both grieving... giving each other comfort," Kal taunted, making very little effort to keep the skepticism and derision out of his tone when he said comfort. “I just thought you should know that Lionel probably won't be in a good mood when they're done.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I don’t know, just a few hints that Morgan dropped. I guess I was wrong though.”

“Clark... what do you mean? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing much, really. Lionel’s a bit miffed that Morgan paid someone to hurt Lex, and Morgan wasn’t too worried – said he had someone to offer up in his place. Someone closer to home. Funny isn’t it? After all the times and all the things Lionel's done to hurt Lex, who would have thought he’d be so territorial about it?”

“Clark…I…”

“Sorry for waking you up. I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

Snapping the phone shut, Kal smiled and dropped it into the trash bin as he walked past.

Knowing Lionel, he didn’t need to call, the number he’d dialed had probably been tapped as soon as she moved in.

 

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“I thought you were going back to bed?” Clark's quiet question made Helen jump and drop her key ring.

Fumbling to find the car key again, she tried to calm her breathing before turning to him.

“Clark?” She asked, startled, as she looked him up and down. He hardly looked anything like the sweet bashful teenager that Lex had introduced her to; instead, the boy before her looked harder, angry, hostile, and almost... dangerous. It wasn't just the way he was dressed either. She'd grown up in a metropolitan city. She'd seen boys trying to look cool and dangerous, dressed in leather, and usually, it was just an affectation. This clearly wasn't. The black leather and intimidating stance looked natural on him, as if it came too easy, and the malice in his eyes seemed perfectly at home in his cold, uncaring expression.

“Helen, I can call you Helen; can't I?”

“I'm not sure that's appropriate. Dr. Bryce would be better, I think.” Helen answered, trying not to seem as intimidated as she felt.

“Appropriate? I'm surprised that you're concerned with what's appropriate- when you're jumping from Lex's bed into his father's, but then, I guess appropriate went out the window when you took money from Morgan to kill Lex?”

“Clark! I...can't even imagine how you could … why you would... Are you on drugs?” Helen tried for scandalized over terrified, but Clark's knowing smirk was too telling; however, he had guessed the truth, he was clearly certain that he was right.

Finally finding the right key, Helen gratefully slid it into the lock and turned it frantically. Thankfully, he stepped back when she jerked the door open and let her climb in quickly slamming it behind her.

“That's funny,” Clark's smile was completely off, and Helen couldn't help the shudder that ran down her spine at his predatory expression. “Neither Lionel or Morgan had any difficulty at all imagining what I told them. Of course, I might have told them, slightly different stories... and exaggerated your involvement, just a little bit.”

“What?!?” She cried, slamming her fists against the dashboard, angrily. From his earlier phone call, she'd assumed that only Lionel was going to be out after her, which was dangerous enough, but if Clark had stirred up Morgan against her – even her slimmest chances of surviving had just been cut in half.

“What can I say? Play with fire, and you're bound to get burned.”

“You don't know what you what you've done?” Helen screamed at him, losing her temper. ”Why you would do something like this...”

“Just evening things up for a friend; I would have said our mutual friend, but can you still call Lex your friend when you're screwing his dad?”

“You … you … you bastard!” Too furious and frightened to continue listening, Helen slammed the gearshift into reverse and sped out of the parking spot.

“Fucking little bastard!” She cursed, speeding down the third parking tier as quickly as she could take the turns. “That fucking little bastard.”

She flicked off the second tier guard as he barely got the gate up in time, shouting at her to slow down as she sped passed. Jamming her heel into the gas pedal, her anger spiking, Helen was watching the guard running after – in the rearview mirror – when a blur of something suddenly appeared in front of her. Shrieking, she swerved away from the blur, only realizing as she turned her head to see that the blur had, impossibly, been Clark. She could have hit him. She could have hit him!

Before she even had time to regret the lost chance, her attention was jerked forward again by the impact of the convertible’s hood striking the parking ramp's guard rail. She threw a hand forward to brace herself, but never having buckled her seat belt, there was nothing for her to grasp as she was thrown up and out of her seat, over the hood, and over the rail.

 

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“Sir, are you alright?” the anxious security guard's question jerked Kal's attention back from the crushed hood of cobalt blue ferrari. Such a shame, he thought, if he remembered correctly that had been one of Lex's favorite cars.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” he assured the man, “but you better call an ambulance for her.”

“I already have, the police too. Can I tell the officers your apartment number?”

“Actually, if you don't mind, I'd like to be left out of it.”

“But, Sir, she could have killed you!”

“I understand that, but she didn't. Anyway, I was here... visiting a friend, a female friend... a married female friend, and I really rather not drag her or her husband into anything... unsavory, if you get what I mean.”

“Ahhh, yes, Sir, of course. We pride ourselves on our discretion, and as you say, she didn't hit you or injure you, so there's really no reason to involve you. Do you need a ride to your car?'

“No, she was driving, thank you. I'll walk.”

“Okay, but the police are already on their way.”

“Don't worry, I'll be gone long before they arrive.”

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The all too-familiar pain of a post-knockout headache assaulted Lex as he opened his eyes and blinked at the streaks of street lights going past overhead.

“Urrrrhgh… pull over.” He finally groaned.

“Sorry Doll, I’m under orders here. Tall, dark, and handsome, version 2, promised to get back with us when we break town, but took a little detour along the way.”

“Okay.” Lex groaned and wrapped his arm across over his eyes again.

Concussions were a bitch; flashing streetlights and a driver who truly had no concept of how to drive a high performance vehicle did not help matters in any way, shape, or form. The pounding promise of a three-day headache taunted Lex as he tried to search his memory for the last moment before darkness encompassed him.

Like so many other post-knockout "what-the-fuck-just-happened" memory checks, his last memory centered on Clark: Clark trembling under his fingertips; the soft gasp Clark made as he slipped his fingers into he gap between the buttons of Clark’s silk shirt; the supple slide of cloth on skin as they danced; the smooth rise and fall of Clark’s hips in time to his; the way that Clark responded to every touch and gesture; the sweetness of Clark’s lips closing on his...

Then darkness.

Clark had knocked him out, somehow, but to what end?

A bump in the road that should have been easy to avoid threw Lex’s head back against the seat.

“Pull over!” he gasped as much as ordered, but the blonde looked over with an annoyingly sympathetic look, nodded, and slowly pulled to the side of the road.

When they were finally stopped, he threw the door open, flung himself out of his seat, and barely kept his stomach down as he lurched around the rear of the car.

“Move over.” He ordered impatiently, clinging to the door frame as he waited. When Isaac had settled into the passenger seat, Lex gratefully sank into the driver's seat and rested his pounding skull against the head rest, taking a deep breath.

“Okay. Now tell me what's happening, everything you can remember, and anything else you think you might know about what's happening.”

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Cursing under his breath, Lex dialed Bruce’s number repeatedly, without response, and slammed his fist into the steering wheel.

“Hey, easy there,” the blonde’s hand rested carefully on his shoulder as though anticipating a violent response from Lex.

Admittedly, Lex realized, it wasn’t entirely an unrealistic expectation. He’d been more than a little impatient with the younger man when Isaac had tried to explain first Bruce’s then Clark’s absence, but as much as he realized that Isaac had been carried along by the events as surely as he had been, keeping his temper in check wasn’t high on his list priorities. Lex was furious.

“I’m going to kill him!”

“Kal? Or your friend?” Isaac questioned with curious amusement.

“Yes.” Lex huffed, ignoring the blonde’s chuckle as he tried to dial again.


	5. Chapter 5

"Mr. Quigley, join me, please." Andros Kallikrates ordered calmly as he gestured an invitation into the limo. This was an act he'd perfected since moving from his former life as Chicago borne, Pay-in-a-Day loan specialist, (aka, virtual-nobody) Andy Collins.

Then again, this was the first time he'd met someone who was truly "connected", in the Chicago sense of the word. Sure, Luthor, Carmicheal, Scott, and Edge were the “heavy hitters” in Metropolis, but that was due to the money and and influence or in lieu of that information and intimidation that they could wield - not because of any true connection to old world syndicates. When it came down to it, Andy -who’d been named Andros after his grandfather (on his mother’s side), Andros Antonio Kalikrates, a second generation member of the Greek Syndicate - was more connected than any of the so-called heavy hitters, which was probably the only reason that he was even getting the courtesy-call from.

Quigley grunted and slid in but waved off the drink Andros offered him.

"Straight to business, then?" he offered graciously, folding his hands in his lap.

"Your grandfather’s good name is still respected in many circle’s Mr. Collins. My employers still remember and tell stories of the your grandfather and his partners visiting their casinos. Because of this good relationship, they wished me to communicate that they have no interest in interfering with your livelihood or any operations under any 'business alias' you may wish to use."

"That's good to hear," Andy answered uneasily, dropping the accent that had taken months of watching _Zorba, The Greek_ to perfect.

"There are concerns, however, with others operating in this area, whose hostilities are interfering with matters of _interstate commerce_. My employers have reason to believe that you have business engagements with one or both gentlemen and wished to suggest that you take this opportunity to extract yourself from such unprofitable ventures ."

"And if I do? Extract myself?"

"There would be no reason to further include you In the matter." From the man’s tone, there was no question left in Andy's mind that being left out of Quigley's plans was a very good thing.

"If I may ask, who should I be avoiding?"

Quigley's gaze hardened, sending a sharp spur of dread across his nerves as the man growled, "Lionel Luthor, Morgan Edge, and associates."

"About that, you may want to hold off - until morning; if I’m not mistaken the ‘hostilities’ you were sent to deal with … may have … uhh... resolved themselves by tomorrow."

“How is that?” Quigley glare turned suspicious, so Andy rushed to explain - making it as clear as he could that he’d already ‘extricated’ himself from doing business with either man.

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By the time Collins had composed himself enough to glance back in the rear view mirror, Bruce had disappeared into the alley where he’d parked Kent’s bike.

Discarding the expendable suit coat and slacks that he’d grabbed with his ‘traveling bag’ while Isaac was settling in to the front seat, Bruce wiped away his stage make up, exchanging his syndicate hitman persona for something more suitable to the evening’s events, and cursed under his breath.

Kent was an idiot.

As Isaac had suggested, once ‘the Greek’ was tantalized with a few mentions of his grandfather’s superficial involvement with gambling casinos and through them the corrupt interests that ran them, he was easily lead to the conclusion Bruce wished: that his alias Thomas Quigley was a hitman, whom he very much wished to stay on the good side of.

Once convinced of this, Collins had practically tripped over himself to get the information Bruce requested, and what he found out wasn’t good.

Kent was a blithering, fucking idiot.

Kent had somehow gotten recruited by Morgan Edge into taking on Luthorcorp’s heavily-guarded central site, with a heavily armed crew - consisting of some of Edge’s best men and several violent conflicts. Not only that, but from Kent’s own comments, Lionel was aware of Edge’s plans and, from Kallikrates’ reports, had called in a large number of his own men to throw at Edge.

The boy had put himself in the center of a veritable civil war, and you could be certain that both sides had orders to put the first bullet right between the boy’s eyes.

Cursing under his breath, Bruce tucked his mask, and straddled the motorcycle - pausing only long enough to vow that if he could pull Kent out of it – alive - not even Lex would be able to keep him from making certain the boy understood the error of his ways.

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As he nodded to the two men using blow torches to cut through the vault doors on the seventh floor, Morgan found himself wondering if it wasn’t coming together too easily. Although they had met with some resistance from the security guards on the first and third floors, for a Luthor complex, the limited number of guards that they had encountered was suspicious. Grimacing at the teen, he gestured for the extra muscle that he’d hired on a hunch to take another tour of the floor.

Normally, he wouldn’t have credited a teenager with being able to set up a double cross like he was beginning to suspect Kal had, but Kal, who was leaning on his hip against the stair rail, smiling smugly, had been an enigma since their first meeting, and Morgan wondered about his motives for the twentieth time. True, the kid had done everything he’d promised to, but Morgan hadn’t been able to find out why or how he had - and that was bothering him.

Noticing that the young man’s eyes had settled on him, he jerked his head up the stairwell and ordered mildly, “let’s take a walk.”

“Sure,” Kal shrugged with annoying nonchalance.

Even if the boy wasn’t dealing him a bad hand, Morgan had thought more than once about leaving the boy’s body in the vault as a calling card for Luthor. Unlike Lionel, who had a penchant for surrounding himself with (and warping) young attractive pawns until he used them up or grew bored and discarded them, Morgan took a visceral pleasure in taking them apart - in utterly destroying them. If it had not been for the promise of an in to Luthor’s complex, the temptation to do the same with Kal would have been overwhelming.

Of course, he realized that it probably stemmed from a deeply seeded jealousy for Kal’s poise. Morgan had seen enough prison shrinks to know why he’d dreamed more than once of strangling Kal with his bare hands and watching his lips gape and gasp for air as he slowly tightened his hold. He knew, he just didn’t care. Kal got on his nerves, showing a self-assurance that it had taken Morgan more than two decades to develop. The young man’s lack of posturing bravado got under his skin, too. On top of that, with little experience, Kal had already stolen two takes right out from under his men’s noses. There was no telling what he’d be capable of in few years, and unlike Lionel, Morgan had no interest in grooming his own protégé.

“You’ve never really told me why you were willing to risk incurring Lionel’s wrath.” Morgan prompted.

“No. I haven’t,” Kal agreed infuriatingly, “but then, you’ve never really told me why you wanted to get in here, either. It kind of balances out.”

Morgan would have almost admired the kid’s audacity if he weren’t keeping himself from grabbing the boy by the throat and slamming him into a wall for mouthing off to him.

“I’m not so sure of that. It seems to me that I’ve put a fairly heavy investment on your keeping up your side of the bargain.”

The boy’s smile was almost predatory when he turned it on Morgan, answering, “Well, we all take risks don’t we?”

The decision wasn’t all that difficult to make, in hindsight.

After seeing that smile, Morgan was hard pressed not to pull his gun and put a bullet right between the irritating teen’s eyes, right then and there, but they were still too close to his men below, and he didn’t want to interrupt what they were doing. Plus, he wasn’t all that interested in giving his ‘new hires’ too much time to think about their likely fate, either.

“Some more than others.” Morgan agreed, “what about you? Are you up to taking a risk?”

Kal’s eye’s flashed at the challenge. “Sure, what did you have in mind?”

“Sadly, we can’t beard the old lion in his den, but there’s no reason not to see what he may have left lying around.”

“Sounds good to me.” The predatory smile curled on his lips again, and Morgan double checked the kid’s outfit to make certain he didn’t have a gun. When Kal had first shown up in a clubbing outfit, Morgan had almost slugged him, but now he was grateful because there was no way that Kal could be hiding a gun on him- dressed like that.

Turning around his back on Morgan, Kal practically ran up the steps two at a time until he was a full flight ahead of Morgan.

“Well, are you coming?” Kal asked eagerly.

“You go ahead, I’ll follow you in a minute.”

He had men posted in the stairwells, all with orders to take the boy out if he tried to sneak away, so he wasn’t too worried about Kal leaving with anything even if the kid chanced to find something before he got there..

“Kay.” Kal turned with an enthusiasm that was more in tune with his age than his unusual self-assurance and hurried up the next flight of stairs, out of Morgan’s sight.

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Kal almost enjoyed the game of cat and mouse he'd been playing with Edge. Letting himself be seen as Morgan seemed to trudge up the stairway, then zipping away to knock out more of Morgan's men. By the time they'd reached the eleventh floor, he'd knocked out and disarmed all of the stairwell guards, the guys on the third, fifth, and seventh floors. Darting back, Kal watched as Morgan turned from one landing to the other, then smirked and zipped away to take care of Lionel’s men who were laying in wait on the tenth and eleventh floors.

Making short work of the vault doors, he destroyed all of the files that he’d been looking for, tossed the unconscious men in the vaults, secured them with twist of metal, and ran back to wait for Edge outside Lionel’s office. If he’d had more time, and - to be honest - interest, Kal would have given in to the urge to dump the unconscious men outside the building, where they might have had have had a better chance of surviving when the building came down, but the chances of giving himself away and letting either or both Morgan and Luthor get out of his trap were too high to take the risk. So tossing them in the vault was about the best he thought he could do for them. At least, they’d have the extra barriers of thick reinforced metal between them and the falling construction.

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Staring irritably at the he padlock on utility entrance door, which appeared as if it had been twisted open, Bruce paused to slide his lock-pick back into his pocket - studying the twisted metal with curiosity. It was an unusual way to break a lock - taking the time to torque it with a… crow bar, perhaps - and strangely inconsistent with the technology and sophistication that he'd been told to expect.

There were very, very few things that Bruce detested more than unexpected details. Unexpected details generally meant an unpredictable actor. Unpredictable actors were, in Bruce's opinion, the most direct and accurate cause of a disastrous situation.

A lock twisted open with a crow bar could mean anything from a blunt force weapon to someone with a fixation for tearing, twisting, and warping, jagged edges and ...

Putting his speculation aside until he had more information to work with, Bruce slid a scope into the crack between the utility door and its frame, to double-check that it had not been booby-trapped before pulling it open. When the door checked out, he moved swiftly and cautiously through the corridor, following a trail that the invaders had made no effort to cover - with growing anxiety.

Guards...

He should have run into them before now, or more to the point, by the time he reached the utility stairwell, he should have had to maneuver either around Luthor’s guards or Edge's skulking thugs. The first, second, third, and fourth floor's were similarly devoid of the expected guards, but not in a manner that allayed his suspicions.

Corporations the size, scope, and nature of LuthorCorp did not leave a single floor of a branch office unattended, much less five floors of their central complex, unguarded. Yet, as he left level after level, it was readily apparent that unauthorized activities had occurred. Central cubicles had been ransacked and left with their drawers opened or emptied on their desk tops. Office doors that should have been closed, stood opened.

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"Morgan," Lionel Luthor greeted his old "friend" warmly as the man stepped through the doorway, shooting an unpleasant glance at Kal as he passed.

"Lionel," Morgan acknowledged, closing the door behind him before pushing Kal forward. “What an unexpected surprise. I never would have believed that you’d risk a play like this, facing off against me, with just this kid for back up?”

“You’re right, it does not sound like the type of risk that I would normally take, does it?” Luthor’s smile was creepily calm even to Morgan, and he shot a glance at Kal to judge the kid’s reaction, but for the first time - the kid was beginning to look a little unnerved himself. Whatever Luthor had planned, Kal apparently wasn’t in on it.

“I don’t suppose that you’re interested in buying your way out of this little predicament? Say for a measly half million? Direct deposited into one of my Cayman's accounts? You should have a list of my private account numbers memorized by now.

"In addition to what your men are pilfering?"

"Consider it their finder's fee. You can't actually expect me to believe that you keep anything of real worth on site."

"Perhaps, perhaps not." Lionel commented dismissively before turning to the young man.

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"Kal El, do you see, now, why it was necessary to excise you from the ties that these beings have on you? They have no honor. The values, which you sentimentalize, mean nothing to them." Lionel's voice changed in pitch and intonation as he spoke - not even sparing a glance toward Edge as he drew a gun from Lionel's pocket and summarily put a bullet between Morgan Edge's eyes, then continued. "They hold no loyalty - even to those, whom they consider friends. They are ruthless in their machinations and practice hypocrisy as easily as they disregard the laws and codes that they do not wish to apply to them."

"Jor El," Kal grunted through clenched teeth, "How..."

"How does not matter," Jor El answered coldly, "Luthor's curiosity with the nexus enabled him to be used as a conduit while his unbiased understanding the flaws of his fellow humans makes him an ideal instructor in the methods necessary to take control of their world. They are a flawed race, Kal El. He can assist you in your rise to power. He longs for his lost son and would accept you as a substitute until you are able to displace him."

"You fucking bastard, I never thought anyone could be lower than Lionel!" Kal cursed with a scream, trying to ignore shriek of guilt that cut through his inner thoughts as Edge toppled.

The puckered hole of skin in the center of Morgan's forehead strangely had far less blood around it than he would have thought, Kal observed, feeling oddly detached from the scene. Logically, he knew that the force of the almost point blank shot would have forced the path of blood out the back of the skull where the bullet exited, but the strangely irregular and off centered circle of blood pooling beneath Morgan's head somehow didn't seem as if it could be connected with the perfectly symmetrical circle sitting perfectly centered between his eyebrows.

This was what he had come for, he told himself,forcibly overriding whatever small inner part of Kent remained...as he stared at the puddle of blood that almost seemed to be crawling outward from the stained blond hair. This was why he had left Lex in Wayne's care- to ensure that everyone who could threaten Lex was neutralized. This was what it was going to take; he'd known that. He had come to LuthorCorp for the sole purpose of ending the lives of everyone who could threaten Lex: Luthor, Morgan, Dr. Bryce, and even... Shaking his head, he pushed the useless thought away. He still had to deal with Lionel, first.

Lionel working with the delusional AI could make matters far more difficult and put Lex in far more jeopardy than Lionel alone... Possibly even beyond Kal's ability to protect his friend unless he broke Jor El's control now.

"You're wrong. Lionel might be a ruthless, blood-thirsty, back-stabbing bastard," Kal paused for the briefest second as he thought he saw a glint of humor flicker through Lionel's eyes, "but he would never accept me as his successor... Lex is alive."

Kal's words ignited instantaneous reactions from both of the entities sharing the conduit of Lionel Luthor's body, but although he could detect a battle being fought for control, Kal El had no means of determining who won - until a hoarse, stilted, unnatural voice croaked, "Alexander!"

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Chill green shafts of light suddenly cut across the room from several angles, as a thick buzzing rose in Kal’s ears.

In the center of the room, Lionel dropped to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut. As he fell, the gun dropped from his fingers and slid across the floor; a hoarse, harsh chuckle broke from his throat; and a rictus grin contorted his lips - sending a shudder down Kal’s spine as a wave of dizziness swept him through causing him to stagger.

“A ruthless, blood-thirsty, back-stabbing bastard, hmmm?” Lionel asked, his voice barely cutting through the increasingly loud buzz assaulting Kal. “Ironically, that’s worked in my favor, Jor El wasn’t capable of understanding exactly how far I’m willing to go to protect my interests.”

Kal’s knees struck the floor with a sharp crack, and he swayed weakly before falling back on his heels.

“You’re a smart boy, Clark!” Lionel commented, pushing himself up, and standing as he seemed to regain his strength and self-control - in direct contrast to Kal’s increasing weakness.

“And, more importantly, you’re right.”

He bent to scoop up the gun, and moved toward Kal cautiously, but he need not have worried. By the time the polished tips of Lionel’s “Edward Greens” stopped an inch or two from his knees, Kal had lost the strength to lift his head

“As long as Lex is alive...” As Lionel spoke, a cool round edge of heavy metal pressed into Kal’s hair until it rested firmly against his skull.

“I don't truly have any need for you, do I?”


	6. Chapter 6

Moving carefully through LuthorCorp’s halls, Bruce was cautious to check each office, closet, and alcove, as he worked his way toward Lionel’s office, where he suspected the most significant confrontation would probably occur. His earlier concerns about the absent guards and missing criminals had been answered when he discovered the unconscious men locked into the seventh floor vaults, by another impossibly rent and twisted lock.

On the balance, it had not been a comforting discovery: despite making his passage that much safer, it laid the responsibility for the unarmed and unconscious men directly on Kent. This coupled with Bruce’s earlier observations regarding the torqued lock on the utility door vaulted his concerns about Kent’s potential threat to Lex - to an entirely new level - not quite equal with Lionel’s but rising steadily.

A sharp, percussive ‘crack’ stopped Bruce in his tracks just as he reached the eleventh floor.

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Chill green shafts of light suddenly cut across the room from several angles, as a thick buzzing rose in Kal’s ears.

In the center of the room, Lionel dropped to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut. As he fell, the gun dropped from his fingers and slid across the floor; a hoarse, harsh chuckle broke from his throat; and a rictus grin contorted his lips - sending a shudder down Kal’s spine as a wave of dizziness swept him through causing him to stagger.

“A ruthless, blood-thirsty, back-stabbing bastard, hmmm?” Lionel asked, his voice barely cutting through the increasingly loud buzz assaulting Kal. “Ironically, that’s worked in my favor, Jor El wasn’t capable of understanding exactly how far I’m willing to go to protect my interests.”

Kal’s knees struck the floor with a sharp crack, and he swayed weakly before falling back on his heels.

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“You’re a smart boy, Clark!” Lionel’s words carried down the hall to Bruce as he neared the penthouse office - having run the remaining three flights unimpeded.

“And, more importantly, you’re right.”

Bruce slowed as the office loomed in front of him. As quietly as he could move, there was still know way of knowing whether Lionel had any alarms still active to warn him of Bruce’s presence.

As he neared the door, the radiation sensor that Lex had asked him to check Kent’s ring with - set on the vibrating alarm - began to jangle violently. Silencing it quickly, Bruce carefully tested the doorknob, and finding it locked, slid a scope under the edge. His heart dropped to the pit of his stomach at seeing the worst case scenario that he’d imagined over and over as en route to Luthorcorp. Just a few yards from the door, Kent was on his knees, weaving back and forth weakly, his head drooped and lolling as if he had lost the strength to lift it.

“As long as Lex is alive...” As he spoke, standing above Kent, Lionel was pressing the muzzle of a Kimber Ultra, 9mm into the top of Kent’s skull. Kent seemed so out of it, though, that Bruce wasn’t even certain he was aware of the threat...“I don't truly have any need for you, do I?”

There bodies were overcast in a strange pulsating green light from what looked like glowing jade green panels inset into the wall, but Bruce quickly recognized that panels had to be made from the meteorite that Lex had described earlier. Except that, judging from the violently shaking detector in his pocket, and Kent appearance (nearly unconscious without any other signs of a fight), the radiation in that room probably couldn’t be called low level. Remembering another comment Lex had made about the meteorite, Bruce backed away from the door.

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Jerking in shock when the cellphone in his lap beeped unexpectedly, Lex checked the number and flipped the cover open ready to spew a stream of vitriol at Bruce, when Bruce preempted him in a harsh whisper, ordering: “Save it and give the bottom line on the “spontaneous erratic effects” that came with green meteor radiation!”

Biting back a groan of dread, Lex answered, “Think of amplified steroid rage with physical side effects.”

“Well that’s fucking perfect. What are the effects in high level doses?”

“Bruce?!? What the hell is...”

“High levels, Lex! What happens with high levels? I need to know, now!”

“I don’t know, most of the cases we know about were low level exposure.”  
“By unit or weight?”

“What? Bruce, how much meteorite are we taking about?”

“It looks like your father’s turned his office into a meteor lit sauna. If it has the same mass as jade, I would have to estimate at least 200 to 300 kilogram’s per panel and at least eight panels.”

“Shit! You have to get out of there, now!”

“Can’t!”

“The exposure level’s we’re familiar with are about two to three coulombs per gram, Bruce...PER GRAM.”

“I can’t, Lex, not if you want me to get Kent out of there alive.”

Before his response even registered fully, the line went dead... leaving Lex staring dumbly at the phone until it finally sunk in that Bruce had said they were at his father’s office.

“Buckle up, and hang on,” he ordered with a growl, ignoring Isaac’s shriek of half-terror/half excitement when they took off, maxing out the manufacturer’s maximum suggested speed in 45 seconds.

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“Such a shame. You could have had such potential, and I let it slip through my fingers - giving you to the Kents.” Lionel’s voice drew Bruce’s attention back to the room.

“Noooooo,” Kent groaned, “No... shut... shut up. Don’t talk about...”

“Shhhh... shhh...sh..” Lionel hushed him raising a hand to cover Kent’s lips, as he continued, “If I had raised you, matters would be would have been very different. It would have never come down to a decision between you or Lex.”

“Bull-sh-it,” Kent retorted, pain clear in his voice as he slumped forward, dropping to his hands. “You’ve made Lex’-- s-- h-ell.”

“To make him stronger, Clark, all to make him stronger. Just look at you. Look at how far you’ve come in just a few months. If I had raised you, you and Lex would have been princes to the kingdom, but Jonathon Kent corrupted that potential with his hokum morals and pauper’s virtues, leaving me with a difficult choice.”  
“Fu-uuu-ck...” Kent rolled down onto his elbow, gasping, “Y-o-uu.”

His face looked nearly bloodless and covered in sweat, but Lionel still held the Kimber Ultra firm to Kent’s forehead, where there would be no chance of missing before Bruce could get through the door and close enough that even trying with a well placed shot to throw Luthor’s arm and aim away would have a high probability of causing a fatal discharge.

Cursing under his breath, Bruce scanned the room for any advantage he could get, but nothing was near enough to use without startling Luthor who was continuing to taunt Kent.

“Think very hard about this, Clark, and answer a question for me because it all boils down to this: where do your loyalties lie with me or with Lex? I’m certain Jonathon Kent taught you never to break your word, so I know that if you give me your word that you’ll follow my orders, I can count on it. That’s all you have to do, and I’ll turn off the light show, put my gun away, and make arrangements for you to catch up on your woefully lacking education... Or, you can cling to your meaningless values and your deluded friendship with Lex, for the remaining minutes of your very short life.”

“Go to he-ll.” Kent gasped, finally rolling onto his back as his arms gave out.

“Most likely, but that’s not the issue right now. Are you sure that is the decision you want to make? Lex’s life over yours, even knowing that kind of sentimentality is a weakness, I could never forgive?”

“Just do it.” Kent whispered harshly, seeming to use the last of his strength to claim, “I would rather die than be a monster …”

When it was clear that Kent wasn’t going to say anything more, Bruce knew their time was up and jumped to his feet to kick door open, knowing all to well that while Lionel was a predatory bastard that liked playing with his victims, he didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer - with good grace.

Before Bruce could set himself to kick the door through, Lionel seeming intent on proving him wrong, answered “Good” with an almost cheerful snap that startled both Bruce and Kent as he spun the gun away from teenage and shoot himself in the chest - almost directly .

As he fell, he reached out to grab Kent’s hand and choked out, “Lex.” The rest of his fading sentence was lost to Bruce as he watched the meteor panels slide noisily into place behind lead-grey shields and the door he’d been about to kick open pop open of its own accord.

Rushing through the door, Bruce stepped over Edge’s corpse in his hurry to get to Kent. Not trusting the shields to contain the radiation he’d detected earlier, nor eager to stay in the hot spot, he quickly carried Kent out to the hallway, and rushed back in to check on Luthor.

Bruce wasn’t shocked to find the man dead, but when he stepped back into the corridor to find Kent - still half laying against the wall where Bruce had left him, the muzzle of the Kimber Ultra pressed into the center of his forehead, mumbling, “I can do _This_ … Just do this... to keep Lex safe.” - his breath caught in his lungs and his heart beat stuttered, as if threatening to stop.


	7. Buying time

Pushing through the doorway, Lex Luthor stalked, for the first time in months, into the Luthorcorp atrium. As he glanced around, noticing the absence of guards from the reception desk and from their customary stations flanking the elevators - the private elevator to his father’s suite, most particularly - his anxiety skyrocketed.

He couldn’t even guess what had been going on in his absence, but there was a swell of feeling in the pit of his stomach that ached… beyond the burn of acid, beyond the pain and starvation that he’d suffered on the island, beyond the sickness and delirium that he’d succumbed to before Bruce found him, and with a certainty that he couldn't explain, even to himself, Lex knew that it was almost over.

Whatever was going on, whatever had been going on in his absence since he was banished to that god-forsaken island, was coming to a head, at that very moment, and as if its tension is thrumming through the building, and now that he had entered the building, its tension vibrated through him like a secondary heartbeat.

The elevator ride to his father’s penthouse suite office seemed endless. He easily recognized that he elevator was moving at it’s normal speed, but every breath was was thrumming, every heart beat pounding against his chest, and he knew without question that time was being lost.

Time to do what, he didn’t know, but he was certain that time was being lost with every second that the elevator took to arrive.

The question of what was being lost was answered with stunning bluntness as soon as the elevator doors slid open. For just yards away, just in front of his father’s office, were Clark and Bruce....

Or rather Kal and Batman:

Two identities of his two closest friends that Lex knew almost nothing about.

He’d known Bruce for over a decade, since boarding school. Batman had saved him more than once, and he’d immediately known they were the same. You couldn’t _know_ Bruce, and know his sense of humor and his anger and his desire to _fix_ things, without recognizing Bruce beneath Batman’s cowl.

Clark and Kal were an entirely different matter: paradoxically opposite by comparison. Where Bruce’s disguise obscured his identity... his physical identity... but not his personality. Clark’s disguise obscured his essential identity, but left his physical identity barely touched.

Yet, they were equally submerged to those who did not know them so well as Lex. Lex had seen Batman pass within inches of regular associates without Bruce being recognized, and even Chloe, who’d known Clark and met Kal had claimed that it was as if there was nothing left of the boy she’d known.

However, known or unknown to him, there they stood; and watching them as the elevator doors slid open, his breath caught in his lungs, and his heart beat stuttered, as if threatening to stop. He stepped into the corridor to find Clark - half laying against the wall, his knees drawn up, his arms folded in on themselves, and his hands clasped together - holding something that he couldn’t be seeing correctly.

It was not as if he believed that Clark had never held a gun before. He was raised on a farm, and had probably learned the necessity of using a gun to exterminate scavengers and predators, but it still seemed impossible that he was seeing Clark holding the muzzle of the Kimber Ultra pressed into the center of his own forehead.

Lex had been there before, himself; he understood that level of despair that could bring someone so low that by comparison death seemed a happy alternative … to a state where even not believing in the possibility of a heaven - the possibility of escaping such despair was an near irresistible temptation.

But this was Clark... he had hoped and prayed, apparently worthless prayers, that Clark would never be brought so low. The fact that Clark had been made to suffer such torment was inconceivable; and for the first time since hearing of Clark’s suffering from Chloe, it finally brought home to him how broken Clark had become... brought home to him the sight of cold unforgiving gun metal pressed against the pale skin of Clark’s forehead as Clark’s finger trembled on the trigger. It was wrong!

The universe that would allow such an occurrences was inherently wrong.

“Cl-ar-K … Cl-ark …” he murmured in a whisper, not wanting to startle his friend, but unable to deny the anguish that rose to his lips at the sight.

Kal turned to look at him, and there was no question in Lex’s mind that it was Kal looking out at him through the aged, joyless, anguished … despairing eyes... eyes that reached out to Lex, begging him … begging him - just this once - to save Clark, to rescue the rescuer, and Lex felt utterly helpless.

He couldn’t throw platitudes at Clark, or promise that Clark could overcome this, because he didn’t know if he could, and looking into Kal’s eyes, he didn’t believe it. How could Clark come back from this.

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Bruce cursed under his breath as he heard Lex call out to the teen, who was still mumbling, “I can do _this_ … it will keep him safe ... it's worth it to keep Lex safe. Just ... just finish the job, and Lex will … Lex will be safe.”

“Kent, Stop.” Bruce ordered, as much to prevent Lex from hearing the kid’s twisted motivation for self-destruction as to redirect the kid’s attention. “This is not the way to deal with your problems.”

It was too much to hope that Lex hadn’t heard, Bruce realized as Kent’s name slipped from Lex. His eyes wide with shock and his already pale skin going even more pallid, as he heard Kent’s rambling.

“Hurting yourself won’t stop Lex from being hurt. You should realize that, by know. Lex draws trouble like a magnet, and has been getting himself into dangerous situations long before he met you.” He countered, looking toward Lex who appeared to be floundering over how to respond: whether to attempt to offer comfort or whether to stay back in fear of escalating Kent’s response.

For all practical purposes, Bruce thought, he was on his own.

Then Kent did something that he hadn’t done throughout the previous twenty minutes that Bruce had been trying to coax the gun from his hand: he turned and looked at Lex. It wasn’t much of a response, but it was more than he had managed to get from the kid, so Bruce decided to strike while the iron was hot - darting forward to twist the gun out of the kid’s loosely clasped fingers, carefully keeping it pointed up and away from them as he did.

Kent gave more of a fight than he expected, though, and kept a firm - if shaking - grip on the gun on the gun until Lex’s voice broke through the sounds of their tussle, angry and authoritative as he ordered, “Kal, let go!”

Too fast to have even consciously obeyed, Kent let his hands fall free and swung his gaze back to Lex.

“Good.” Lex ordered, impressively whip-sharp, “Get up and come here.”

Kent struggled to his feet and staggered towards Lex, only to drop to his knees barely three steps later, then slump to the floor, unconscious.

Growling under his breath at the inconvenience, Bruce picked Kent up, and threw him over his shoulder waving Lex down the corridor toward the stairs. As a rule, he didn’t trust elevators, it was too easy to stop or sabotage elevators trapping or killing those caught inside, and although he was certain that between Kent and himself, the building had been cleared of threats against them, he wasn’t willing to let his guard down … at least not until he was out of the building.

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As it turned out, thanks to this alertness, even after they’d left the building and loaded Kent into the back seat behind the blond dancer, Bruce caught the forewarning rumble of explosions as the windows of Lionel’s office suddenly exploded outward. Slamming the driver-side door behind Lex, Bruce ordered him to get out of there with a slap to the door beside him, ran to the motorcycle, and followed the car from the parking lot.

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Seventy eight seconds later, the only things that remained of Luthorcorp Headquarters were an eighty square yard, hip-deep pile of construction glass, steel … and three somewhat sealed vaults, with somewhat battered and shell-shocked guards, inside, waiting to be rescued by the police.

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End file.
